Have you noticed how you can hardly get the Christmas decorations put away before the avalanche of garden catalogs begins to hit your mailbox?

Each year brings a few new seductive little numbers overflowing with impossibly colorful images of gigantic fruits and flowers.

Hooray for Photoshop, I suppose. But I’m sure I’m not the only one left wondering why my smallish and not particularly sparkly flowers don’t quite match the glossy, goosed-up ones in the catalogs.

January, by the way, has been declared National Mailorder Gardening Month by the Mailorder Gardening Association — no surprise there. It really is the perfect time to curl up by the fire with a pile of catalogs and dream away about spring and summer.

Here are a few of the ones that have come my way in the last month or so:

Americans are expected to spend more than $3 billion on mail-order and Web garden products this year, according to the association. Its Web site is superb, with links to more than 100 garden catalog Web sites.

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but I do tend to ruminate about my garden in January and February, walking around in the cold and wondering what I might like to do differently.

This year, I’m determined to grow more plants from seed, especially annuals. They really do so much better over the course of the summer than the ones you buy in flats or 4-inch pots in May.

By August, my seed-started annuals are often nearly twice the size of the ones I bought as plugs from nurseries and home centers — healthier, too.

In past years, I’ve liked Burpee, Stokes, Johnny’s, Jung and Park for seeds, but this January I’m really taken with the catalog from D. Landreth Seed Co. The 50-page catalog is loaded with hundreds of seed choices (and the expected ridiculously luscious color photos).

For the vegetable patch, Territorial Seed Co. and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds look pretty swell this year.

And you can always count on old standbys like Burpee’s, White Flower Farm, Cook’s Garden and Renee’s (she’s got the most attractive packaging).

I’m also determined to curb my tendency to over-order. What looks so enticing in winter can get pretty overwhelming in May, when the UPS man pulls into the driveway day after day after day.

One trick I’ve learned over the years is to let my wish list age for a week or two before actually mailing or calling in the order. First I turn down the edges of lots of pages, then I draw up a list of gotta-haves on a legal pad, then I wait and give it all a hard edit a week later.

You might also try getting together with another gardener or two or three to make your order. You’ll get a break on postage and handling, and you can split up the seed packages into more reasonable numbers. Who needs 200 seeds of the same tomato plant?