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L'Atelier Vert - A zinc and brass watering can by the artisan who has received the title of Meilleur ouvrier de France (Best worker of France) for his metal work; a collection of five hand tools made by one of the oldest tool manufacturers in France in operation since 1751; chestnut and willow baskets; a Cotentin ceramic pumpkin; a Feuilles de Fleurs (sheet of flowers) 'Ikebana'; straw jewelry — all from this French site. It also provides recipes, seed packets, kitchen and table antiques and links for French gardens. 'Economy Shipping' direct to the US and Canada from Paris. The founder of the site is Barbara Wilde.

SugarRunClayworks - We discovered these pots at a shop in the San Francisco Ferry Building Marketplace and plan to buy some at the SF Flower Show. Based in Seattle, John Weber makes all his own terracotta pots.

Each piece is handthrown and hand decorated. They are then dried and fired hotter than most terracotta. This process renders the clay to be very durable. Pots used within a 50 mile radius of Seattle are guaranteed against frost damage for five years. All other areas — highly frost resistant to 20°F, but not guaranteed. As you can see from the pot photos, the containers are highly colored with fresh, contemporary designs. Retail prices are available for all designs and sizes.

Mission Hills Nursery - It doesn't take much for a gardener to look for seeds and implements ahead of the planting season. This San Diego based nursery founded by Kate Sessions in 1910 stocks interesting fountains and statuary in the shape of geese, swans, ducks and cranes. Tools are intriguing and practical variations: mini planting hoe, gardening broom, crumbler, cultivator and mounding hoe. There's also a little-used forum. Botanical Interests is the featured seed company.

FineGardenProducts.com - A wonderful assortment of both original and reproduction pieces from fountains to boot brushes to gazing globes to butterfly houses and thermometers. Choose a double dolphin, Helene, Pocco, Leon, Grippo or Neptune spout for your fountain. Or perhaps a Frank Lloyd Wright lantern for your path? The antiques are pricey, naturally, but fun to view and perchance, to dream into your life and garden.

Article

Many garden but few gardeners have the power to reach into the future to shape landscape style and fashion. Gertrude Jekyll, Mien Ruys, Geoffrey Jellicoe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Thomas Church, Roberto Burle Max, and Edwin Lutyens are just some of the extraordinary gardeners from the last century who influence today’s garden design.

Andrew Wilson introduces 56 of them in Influential Gardeners; The Designers Who Shaped 20th-Century Garden Style (Clarkson Potter, 2003), transporting readers through photographs and scholarly text into the designers’ ideas and gardens.

Wilson has the perfect background for the task: He teaches the professional diploma course in Garden Design Studies at the world-famous Ichbald School of Design in London and was the chairman of the Society of Garden Designers. Wilson tackled this daunting task by organizing the designers by their primary focus — color and decoration, plants, concept, form, structure, texture, and materials. An introduction to each section provides an overview of the times. More detailed essays about the individual designers follow, providing just enough information to whet one’s appetite. The result is an encyclopedic reference to garden design.

From Linda Coyner's review of Influential Gardeners; The Designers Who Shaped 20th-Century Garden Style

Links

Please refer to Linda Coyner's articles for many more links

• Blue Poppy Garden - The store and B&B is located in Sedgwick, Maine, overlooking the Benjamin River and Eggemoggin Reach and sells gardening books, tools, garden antiques and objects for the garden, as well as a wide variety of linens, pottery, soaps and other imported items. The store also mail-orders blue poppy plants and seeds to its customers and does flower arranging, too. Their pots are varied and interesting such as Mrs. Gaskell's Wide-Bottom Seedpan and frillies and the bookstore filled with instructive and hard-to-find instructive books in addition to the Taylor's Guides.

• Paul Christian-Rare Plants - A specialist nursery in Wales offering a huge selection of rare bulbs, both hardy as well as greenhouse species. The various catalogs are downloadable from the site but the ordering takes place through the mails or by fax, though e-mail for questions is available. Japanese Hepaticas are available for ordering as well as Cypripedium and other bulbs that may be less familiar to you. Do click on the photo galleries even if you're just browsing; they're hard to resist. 

• FineHouse - Architectural Trellis: Garden Structures & Artifacts from this Strasburg, VA firm. Examples of beautifully designed trelliage using a trademarked Spline & Dado connection system for pergolas, gates and trellis. Specifications include materials along with type of hardware and finishes. The trompe l'oeil, espalier and applique elements are part of the 'decorative arts' included on the site. Versailles garden planters and pedestals are available, too. Prices are not on the site at the moment (though a typical schemes pricing guide will be available in the future) but a customized quotation can be requested and answered within two days.

• Great Plants - The company founder has extensive credentials in the field and the site features the current list of a collector's choice. Online ordering of selected categories of plants is possible; day lilies seem to be a specialty as well as the currently popular tree peony.  I noticed that a number of selections are sold out so the refrain of 'next year' might be apt. 

• Logee's Greenhouses - An extraordinary place to visit in rural Connecticut, but this site is the next best thing. Logee's offers a sampling of 1,500+ rare and unusual flowering plants for home, sunroom, patio, and conservatory. In business since 1892, delivering since 1935 - compatible with the age of some of those associated with SeniorWomen Web. We've received plants from Logees in beautiful shape and they've continued to thrive.

• MySeasons - Essentially a direct-mail organization (Foster & Gallagher) of well known gardening suppliers (Breck's Spring Hill Nurseries and Stark Brothers) for bulbs, saplings, fruit and vegetable seeds and plants, and a few garden accessories like books. There is a how-to section, an ask-the-expert section, articles and a money-back guarantee. Can you believe that there's a 'Pretty Woman' Tulip?

• Seeds of Change - Certified organic hybrids, eco-bulbs, organic perennials, live seedlings and over 1,500 different see varieties and more than 50 kinds of bulbs are on the website. Heirloom and traditional seed varieties are available.

• Seibert and Rice - Terra cotta pots handmade in Italy which are frost proof. Although pricey, they're worth the investment if you take into account all those others that have cracked and crumbled, necessitating frequent replacements.

• SnowPond Farm Supply - The company states that they operate in an environmentally sustainable manner and they are members of Coop America Business Network. There is a discount for placing large individual or group orders and there are net 10 accounts. Their products include soil amendments, composting aids, foliar sprays, seeds, pest control measures for insect, animal and fungus, Felco pruners, Corona trowles and cultivators, Earthway seeders, broadcast spreaders, Womanswork gloves and Tec Poison Plant products, all excellent products

• Trellis Structures - Arbors, arches, garden accents, trellis benches, obelisks, grids, and pergolas: we've ordered and had delivered several of these products and found them to be beautifully designed and well-made. The owners were great to work with, the prices were far superior to what we would have had to pay a middleman and the structures of high quality. 

•  White Flower Farm - A source for live plants that has been praised by a well known research organization for the good condition that their plants display when they reach the customer. Perennials are listed by the season in which they bloom; other subjects are Annuals & Tender Perennials, Bulbs, Garden Decor, Gift Ideas, Kitchen Garden, Roses, Shrubs & Trees, Tools & Supplies and Vines & Climbers.  The Garden Path is a collection of links to other recommended sites, organized into categories.