About Parcel & Root
Parcel & Root is an independent English-language almanac for gardeners in the United States who buy seeds, bulbs and plants by mail or online. It explains how to choose and read catalogs, judge suppliers, time orders to your climate, handle live plants when they arrive, and start and save seed.
What you will find here
- Practical guides to ordering: catalogs, shopper tips, plant sizes, bare-root plants, bulbs, shipping seasons and arrival.
- Explainers on the rules that apply to plants and seeds: USDA import requirements, federal and state quarantines, seed labelling and consumer protections.
- Growing guides for what arrives: seed starting, seed saving, vegetables, fruit, small spaces and rented gardens.
- A glossary of nursery and catalog terms.
How the guides are checked
- Rules, dates and figures are checked against primary or authoritative sources: USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and Agricultural Research Service, the Federal Trade Commission, federal regulations, state departments of agriculture, the National Plant Board, and university extension services. They are linked at the end of each guide.
- Where sources disagree, for example on how long seeds stay viable, the guides say so and name each source.
- Figures that could not be verified are left out. Gardening advice that varies by region is presented as a starting point, with a pointer to your local extension office.
- No guide is credited to a person: they all appear under the Parcel & Root name, and the site publishes no fictional writers, customer testimonials or reviews.
What Parcel & Root does not do
It does not sell plants or seeds, take payment for listings or recommendations, run advertising, use affiliate links, rank suppliers or keep a directory of companies. Company names appear only when needed to explain something, and historic catalog covers are shown as historical illustrations; trademarks belong to their owners. The guides are general information and do not replace the instructions that come with your plants, the advice of your local extension service, or legal advice about plant regulations or leases.
Photos
All photos and illustrations are free-licensed or in the public domain, credited under each image and listed on the photo credits page. Several are covers of early twentieth-century American seed catalogs, now in the public domain.
About this domain
From around 2000 to the mid-2010s, the domain mailordergardening.com hosted the website of a US trade association of companies selling gardening products by mail, with information for its members, a directory of member catalogs, tips for shoppers and pages about its conventions and awards. The site was later taken down, and for a time the domain was used for unrelated pages. Parcel & Root is a new and independent publication: it is not affiliated with the Mail Order Gardening Association, does not represent it or any company, and reuses none of its texts, lists or images. Some old addresses on this domain, such as the former catalog directory, shopper tips and glossary pages, now lead to new, original guides on the same subjects.
Corrections
Rules on plant shipping and seed labelling get amended, and mistakes happen. If a guide has fallen behind or got something wrong, the legal notice says how to let the editors know.