As garden catalogs are piling up and online versions fill your inbox, your thoughts may turn to the growing season ahead. With so many choices of beautiful flowers and scrumptious vegetables it can be overwhelming and hard to resist buying more seeds and plants than you have space to grow and time to tend.

Start by flipping through the pages of various catalogs and searching gardening websites and online catalogs to gather ideas and inspiration. Narrow down your search by selecting plants suited to your climate and growing conditions.

Quality catalogs will list the cold hardiness zone of tr...