If the weather has you down, just remember that spring is around the corner. Sure signs are the announcements of flower shows, garden parties and garden tours to come.
Let's begin with the World's Largest Garden Party, which will take place throughout spring in the Delaware Valley (eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware), home of more public gardens than anywhere in North America and rivaled only by London as the world's premier garden showcase. The garden party encompasses 28 institutions, including Longwood Gardens.
Passport to gardens
For more information, request a Garden Passport guide by writing to Gardens Collaborative, 9414 Meadowbrook Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19118 (enclose a self-addressed, stamped -- 52 cents -- envelope).
Among flowering events worth catching are the New England Flower Show in Boston, March 4-12, which again has been named one of the top 100 events in the country by the American Bus Association.
"Celebrations!" is the theme of the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta, Feb. 22-26. For more information on the largest horticultural show in the Southeast, call (404) 888-5638.
The Hawaiian Festival of Flowers will be held at four Honolulu shopping centers April 29-30, just before "lei" day, May 1. For information, call (808) 591-8411.
"Moments in Time . . . A Galaxy of Gardens" is the theme of the Philadelphia Flower Show, one of the oldest in the nation, March 5-12. From ancient (and artificial) Roman ruins to otherworldly sculptures, the Philadelphia show celebrates decades of pleasing floral lovers. For information, call (215) 625-8253.
The Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle, Feb. 22-26, the third-largest spring flower and garden show in North America, features 30 gardens with the theme "Rainbow of Color." For information, call (206) 244-1700.
Up and coming among flower shows is the Rhode Island Spring Flower and Garden Show, which will run Feb. 23-26 at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence. This is only the second annual show, but already they're planning some major events, from seminars featuring top authors and gardeners to more than two dozen demonstration gardens. The show is being held in the new Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence. The tiny state has good reason to boast about its gardens -- nursery and turf businesses make up the largest sector of the state's agriculture business, accounting for 55 percent of its revenues.
One of the best times in the year to be in Ottawa, Canada's capital, is during the annual tulip festival -- this year May 17-22. The city is ablaze with color, a thank-you from the people of Holland for caring for their royal family during World War II. For information, call the festival line at (800) 465-1867, or, for general information on Ontario, call (800) ONTARIO.
And from March 4 to April 9, the Garden of Oz will feature larger-than-life-size topiary of Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion. They will join more than a million flowers for the Southwest's largest outdoor spring festival, in the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden in Dallas, Texas. For information, call (214) 327-8263.
Even New England blooms
For New Englanders wanting a taste of the tropics, the place to go in March and April is to the University of Connecticut's biology greenhouses in Storrs. Here you'll find more than 4,000 species of plants representing two-thirds of all the plant families in the world. On March and April weekends, guided tours will take visitors through wet tropical, dry desert and cool Alpine climates. Guests will view plants ranging from some 500 species of orchids to cactuses and coffee plants. Preregistration is required for these fee-based tours; call (203) 486-4460. The greenhouses are free to the public Monday to Friday without a guide.
The 62nd annual Historic Garden Week in Virginia will be April 22-29. During this colorful week, more than 250 of the state's finest homes and gardens will be open for 36 tours across the state. For information, write to Historic Garden Week, 12 E. Franklin St., Richmond, Va. 23219; or telephone (804) 644-7776.
The only national environmental organization dedicated to preserving and re-establishing native plants in natural and planned landscapes has a new home and showcase. The National Wildflower Research Center in Austin, Texas, will open a 42-acre garden that will boast an abundance of Texas hill country plants, a 45-foot observation tower and a huge rainwater collection and harvesting system. The grand opening festival will be April 8 and 9 in Austin, Texas. The center was founded by Lady Bird Johnson in 1982. For information, call (512) 929-3600.
Desert flowers
Near San Diego, the annual desert wildflower bloom takes place from February to April, and the best place to take it in is at the 600,000-acre Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, one of the largest in the country.
For information, call (619) 767-4684.
One of the most unusual gardens to see has reopened to the public. Closed since 1987, the Forestiere Underground Gardens in Fresno, Calif., is a labyrinth of tunnels, rooms and unique plants, all beneath a 10-acre parcel of land.
The gardens began in 1906 when a Sicilian immigrant, Baldasare Forestiere, decided the best way to escape Fresno's heat was to live underground. His technique for digging this unusual world was developed from ideas he learned in helping to build the subways in Boston and New York. There are more than 50 rooms, including a ballroom with 10-foot fruit trees growing in this highly unusual world.
For information on seeing the gardens, reopening in April, call (209) 271-0734.
For those who want to plant their own garden, the Gourmet Gardener (8650 College Blvd., Overland Park, Kan. 66210; telephone [913] 345-0490) provides a catalog ($2, refundable with order) of herb, vegetable and edible flower seeds from around the world.
There are also tours and getaways to think about. At the classic oceanfront Cape Cod resort the Chatham Bars Inn, March is for garden-lovers. A package, starting at $135 a night, includes a room, gift basket of gardening tools and tips from the Chatham resort's master gardener. For information, call (800) 527-4884. Expo Garden Tours (101 Sunrise Hill Road, Norwalk, Conn. 06851; [800] 448-2685) offers a tour May 3-7 featuring 10 gardens and homes in the Brandywine Valley.
Balkan Holidays has a seven-day Rose Festival tour to Bulgaria's Valley of the Roses, a 75-mile-long valley covered with roses. For information on the May 29 tour, at $1,120 a person from New York, call (212) 573-5530.
Heritage World Tours (16903 Lilly Crest, San Antonio, Texas 78232; [210] 494-6133) will have a British tour May 12-25 that will include the Chelsea Flower Show. For information on the $1,875-a-person tour, call (800) 622-1663.