Catalogs satisfy winter garden urges

It may be a little too early to break out the gardening shovels, but it's the perfect time to stack plant and seed catalogs next to your favorite reading chair.

Fortunately, most mail-order places still offer print catalogs to get you started, but you'll find their Web sites are the best place to find sales and just-arrived plants throughout the year.

When you shop catalogs for plants, especially woody trees and shrubs, pay close attention to their growing zones for cold hardiness — 11 for the warmest and 1 for the coldest. Choose plants that thrive in your growing zone. For example, if you live in Zone 8, look for listings such as Zones 6-9 for a better success rate over time. To find out what growing zone you're in or for more information about zones, go to www.garden.org/zipzone.

Here's what's featured in a few of this year's catalogs:

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

This 80-page catalog is all about hard-to-find and little-known seeds that yield exotic edibles such as black garbanzo and Asian beans, drumhead and loose-leaf cabbage, lemon-shaped cucumber, purple pepper, speckled lettuce and banana melon. Eleven pages of tomato listings feature them by colors — green, orange, pink, purple, red, striped, white and yellow.

Free. www.rareseeds.com

More catalogs

The Mailorder Gardening Association offers a list of catalogs and magazines at www.mailordergardening.com. Check out the "Smart Shopper Tips" on the site.

Burpee Gardening

More than 60 new products in the 135-page catalog include tomatoes such as 'Golden Mama' for yellow sauces, 'Little Mama' for salsa and chutney and 'Napa' hybrid grape for salads.

Small-space gardeners will like the garden pea that grows in an 8-inch-diameter pot with no support.

Eye-popping colors in flowers are seen in 'Watermelon Heaven' California poppy with pinkish-red ruffled petals, 'Honey Bear' sunflower with furry golden-yellow blooms and 'Peppermint Twist' geranium with candy red splashed across snow-white petals.

Free. 800-333-5808 or www.burpee.com

David Austin Roses

This gorgeous, full-color catalog gives you guidance on English roses for specific positions — shade, hedges, pergolas, arches, pots, beds and waterfront. There's also helpful information on how to plant, cultivate and prune roses, as well as full-color photographs and descriptions of the disease-resistant varieties. Rose names you can count on include 'Abraham Darby,' 'Gertrude Jekyll' and 'Graham Thomas.'

Free. 800-328-8893 or www.davidaustinroses.com

Heronswood Nursery

Yes, much of the research and the production gardens were moved from the Kingston location to the East Coast last year. However, you can still find stunning, rare and exotic cultivars through the catalog.

New offerings in the 87-page catalog include 'Jack-in-the-Pulpit' Arisaema fargesii, featuring a black-purple spathe with white translucent lines, and one of the first Hellebore clones, Helleborus x Hybridus 'Kingston Cardinal' with raspberry-mauve double petals.

Free. www.heronswood.com

Park Seed

More than 120 new items are spotlighted in the 148-page catalog.

In flowers, look for lots of pinks — dwarf zinnia, ornamental grass, geranium and reblooming daylily. An oddity is the corkscrew vine with footlong clusters of hyacinth-scented flowers that look like nautilus shells.

Three pages of tomatoes list 'Tumbling Tom,' a weeping form of yellow cherry-size fruits, and reliable types such as 'Better Boy' and 'Big Beef' hybrids.

Free. 800-845-3369 or www.parkseed.com

Select Seeds

'Prairie Glow' rudbeckia, a garnet-branched, upright coneflower with flowers in hues of gold and burgundy, wins a Green Thumb Award from the Mailorder Gardening Association this year.

The fragrant flowers in the 70-page catalog include lavender lovelies such as wild bergamot, violets, columbine and verbena. 'Snowmaiden,' a new fluffy white scabious (pincushion flower) looks enticing for butterfly gardens.

Free. 800-684-0395 or www.selectseeds.com

Wood Prairie Farm

The farm's line of organic garden seed is expanded to take in herb seeds. Its extensive seed potatoes include 'King Harry,' a plant with "hairy" leaves that naturally repel potato pests. You'll also find organic whole-grain bread, cake, pancake and muffin mixes and vegetable seeds in the 40-page catalog.

Free. 800-829-9765 or www.woodprairie.com

Judy Averill, digs editor, contributed to this report