I saw a bumper sticker once that proclaimed, “Thirty Below Keeps Out the Riff Raff”. I haven’t seen minus thirty (yet) this winter, but still chuckle when I think of that slogan. We New Englanders are tough. Or we like to pretend to be. Still, it’s nice to dream of spring, and there is no cheaper way to have a taste of it than to go to a spring flower show. Now is the time to plan your trips.

There’s a new show this year! The Vermont Flower Show that used to appear every year in Burlington/Essex Junction has gone to an every-other-year schedule. This is not the year for the Burlington show, but we are being offered a new alternative: The Gorgeous Gardens & Green Living Show will be held on March 13 & 14, 2010 at Riley Rink, Manchester, Vermont. It is being organized by the Vermont Nursery and Landscape Association. Tickets are $10 and $8 for seniors. Julie Moir Messervy will be the keynote speaker, and a variety of other educational workshops will be held, including one by me. For more info go to www.greenworksvt.org.

The Vermont Flower Show The first show of the season is the New Hampshire Orchid Society Show February 12-14at the Radisson Hotel in Nashua. This is a specialty show, and an interesting one. Admission is $10 or $6 for seniors. For more info go to www.nhorchids.org.

The Providence, Rhode Island and Hartford, Connecticut Flower Shows are February 18-21. The Providence Show has 30 garden displays, 250 vendors and a wonderful lineup of speakers. Go to the Web site (www.flowershow.com) to read about the workshops. Vermont’s Ed Smith (the author of The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible) will be talking, along with speakers on such specialized topics as growing cranesbill geraniums and lavender. I hope to attend this year as I hear it is a great show.

The Hartford Flower Show that same weekend has plenty of blooming flowers and a great program of speakers and classes from bonsai and flower arranging to the basics of water gardening and growing in selfwatering containers. For a full list of classes, go to www.ctflowershow. com . Admission is $14 for adults, kids 7-14 are $2 and little ones are free. It will be held at the Connecticut Convention Center.

The Philadelphia Flower Show comes next, a full 8 days of fun from February 28 to March 7. If you have never gone, and your’re a plants person, you really should go before you die. It is amazing! Acres and acres of flower displays, hundreds of real people competing: gardeners like you and me competing for the best potted plant or bonsai tree or cactus. I love that it is not just professionals and companies with big budgets competing (though there are plenty of those, too). Waterfalls. Forests. Specialty plants. Go midweek. Admission is $23 for adults (no special deal for seniors) and kids 2-17 are $13. For more info visit their Web site, www.theflowershow. com. There will be some 150 presentations offered during the week of the show.

The Central Massachusetts Flower and Patio Show will be held in Worcester March 5-7 at the DCU Center. Tickets are $12 for adults, $9 for seniors and kids 112 and under are free. Info a t www.centralmaflowershow.com

The Portland, Maine flower Show will be held March 11-14 at the Portland Company Complex near the waterfront. It is called Gardens Gone Wild. Admission is $15, kids under 12 are free. More info at www.portlandcompany. com.

Floribunda in Tracy Hall in Norwich, Vermont is the opposite of the Philadelphia show: it is small, parking is free and it is cheap: $5 for adults, accompanied kids are free. This year it is March 20-21, though the Saturday is the best time to go. It’s a great small show, don’t miss it.

There has been no Boston Flower Show for the past 2 years, but it has returned. Sort of. No longer run by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Boston Flower and Garden Show will be run be a professional events company at the Seaport World Trade Center March 24-28. From studying the Web site (www.thebostonflowershow. com/) it appears to be a much smaller show than the past extravaganzas in Boston. Tickets are $20. It will have gardens, lectures and, like all the shows, plenty of garden stuff for sale. The Seacoast Home, Garden Flower Show at the UNH Whittemore Center in Durham, NH will be held March 26 to 28. This more of a home show than a garden show, but the UNH Greenhouses are open and free to the public during the weekend. There are a few garden lectures as well as cooking demonstrations and talks about energy saving techniques. Tickets are only $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $4 for kids 6-16. For more info go to www.homegardenflowershow. com.

So don’t sit at home whining about ice and cold. Get out. Go to a flower show. Maybe I’ll see you there. And spring will be along soon. Really.

Henry Homeyer is a UNH Master Gardener and the author of gardening books. Reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.