Early bloomers

"Deeply Rooted" is the theme of the 133rd New England Spring Flower Show, which combines both tradition and novelty to get the jump on spring this Saturday through March 21 at the Bayside Exposition Center in Dorchester. With more than 5 acres of exhibit space, it is the region's largest annual indoor event, and the world's oldest continuous annual flower show.

Hundreds of volunteers of all ages make it possible. Jared Sell has had entries in the amateur competition since kindergarten, including a cactus he grew from seed. "It was 1 inch after four years," said the patient Framingham eighth-grader, who has also helped create gardens for his family home, school playground, and church. Now at age 13, he's graduated from a 1-inch cactus to a 6-foot-tall volcano made out of plants for the New England Bromeliad Society's display. It includes bromeliads grown in the University of Massachusetts-Boston greenhouses. These tropical rainforest plants are noted for their colorful fleshy leaves and flowers, some red enough to stand in for flowing "lava."

Other plant societies and specialists are spotlighting orchids, roses, bonsai, topiary, ikebana, wildflowers, and trees in their exhibits. A & P Orchids of Swansea will showcase exotic hybrid orchids that bloom in March. "The theme is Deeply Rooted, and I'd have to say we are," said nurseryman Sandy Heimlich of Heimlich Nurseries of Woburn, who is doing a display garden with his daughter Cheryl and son Jeff. "My dad [Alexander Heimlich] started doing the flower show in the 1930s and we've never missed a year."

Others who have been stalwart flower show participants for decades, and even generations, include Paradise Water Gardens in Whitman, The City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department, Wilson Farms of Lexington, and Mahoney's Garden Centers, headquartered in Winchester. Mahoney's, which was a standout last year, is doing the show's largest display under the direction of its gifted designer, Jim Hohmann.

"I'm so psyched that we have both the tenured exhibitors who come year after year and the people who are like Halley's comet, who stream through this galaxy of gardens. We need both to make the show a winner," said show designer Louis Raymond, of Renaissance Gardening Limited in Hopkinton, R.I.

This year's newcomers include Pennoyer Castings, a Manhattan firm whose founder descends from gilded-age mansion owners. Its replicas of early 20th century estate urns will be displayed with prized plants from Twombly Nursery of Monroe, Conn., and Allen C. Haskell of New Bedford.

The largest construction project in the country is showing off highway horticulture. The Central Artery Tunnel Project has created a walk-though exhibit of roadside greenscaping, taking visitors from the woodlands along the Pike to the Big Dig's future downtown plantings.

Gardening magazines and television media are also at the show. Garden Design magazine has produced Beacon Hill fantasy gardens, including a conservatory, a Japanese garden, and a large terrace. New England's favorite gardening personality, Roger Swain, will be on Tuesday night's "Ask the Experts" panel. For those who want to skip straight from winter to summer, the New England Lifestyles television show is furnishing a beachside pavilion with billowing curtains, colorful hydrangeas, and a flat-screen TV ocean at the end of a real sandy beach.

More than 100 garden clubs are creating all those perfectly groomed gardens, perfectly dressed tables, and perfectly arranged bouquets that provide a myriad of detail for close inspection.

Other key volunteers include members of the nomenclature committee founded by Susan Dumaine, who instituted a system of uniform labeling so that all plants are correctly indentified and visitors know what they're looking at. A Standards Committee also helps insure that tropicals (like bromeliads) don't get mixed in with exhibits of New England plant material.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston is returning this year with another indoor/outdoor display. Journey's End of Lexington will feature plenty of bamboo and stone. And M. Garvey Landscape Design of Natick will provide a garden with a furnished conservatory while the American Institute of Floral Designers will feature gigantic bouquets by participating designers.

The Preservation Society of Newport County (sponsors of The Newport Flower Show, June 25-27) will have a topiary policeman, inspired by its Green Animals topiary garden in Portsmouth, R.I., to keep order over its garden and potting shed display.

The New England Wild Flower Society, one of American horticulture's great conservation resources, will have a woodland exhibit that tells how ants promote a thriving landscape.

Other tenured exhibitors include the educational institutions that create the green industry's work force such as Minuteman Regional High School in Lexington, the Stockbridge School of Agriculture in Amherst, and North Shore Community College in Danvers.

And what could be more deeply rooted than bedrock? Earthworks of Leverett, Envision Waterfalls of New Boston, N.H., and R.L. Stevens Construction Co., Inc. of Hopkinton will demonstrate how stonework can make instant landscapes look timeless.

The Bartlett Tree Expert Company of Newton has had outstanding exhibits for several years. This time it is giving visitors a blooming canopy of four mature dogwoods surrounding a formal koi pool, with a storyboard explaining how to use and care for this beloved family of trees.

The New England Spring Flower Show runs 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m. daily excepts Sundays, when hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission is $20 on weekends, $17 on weekdays; children ages 4-12 are $7; seniors 65 and over are $14 weekdays only. Call 866-468-7619 for tickets, 617-933-4980 for information. Advance tickets ($16 weekdays) are available at Borders bookstores, participating garden centers and nurseries, and online at www.masshort.org.

Horticulture magazine is producing the program ($7), which contains a map and describes all the exhibits, including the sales area, with times for lectures and demonstrations during the show.A special centennial issue of the magazine is included. Scheduled speakers include: Tovah Martin, author of "The Windowsill Makeover," at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday; Phebe Goodman, author of "Boston Garden Squares," at 12:30 p.m. Sunday; Cheryl Smith, author of "Garden Friendly Dogs & Dog Friendly Gardens," 12:20 p.m. Monday; Susan Orlean, author of "The Orchid Thief," 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Tickets to the dressy Gala Preview Party tomorrow can be purchased at the door. The Benefactor Preview is 6-10 p.m. ($250), and the Supporter Reception is 7:30-10 p.m. ($95).

Other special events include Home Gardener's night on Tuesday, March 16, 5:30-9:30 p.m., when experts (including myself) will be on hand to give advice; and the Children's Festival on Friday, March 19, 4:30-8 p.m., when one-night-only performances and hands-on activities will cater to kids. On the final Sunday, you can troll for marked-down trowels and other treasures at gardener's marketplace sales booths.

Heaviest attendance is mornings and early afternoons, especially on weekends. Crowds start to thin around 3 or 4 p.m. If you're a member of the 175-year-old Massachusetts Horticultural Society, which sponsors the show, you can beat the crowds by coming during "members only hours" 7-10 a.m. weekends and 9-10 a.m. weekdays. If you're not, you can join on the spot. The $50 membership fee entitles you to one Flower Show ticket, free admission to numerous botanical gardens, gift shop discounts, and a year's subscription to Boston-based Horticulture magazine. (Such a deal!)

Bring a camera, but not a tripod. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes, unless you are short and coming on the weekend, in which case high heels might be advisable. There are free wheelchairs on a first-come basis.

The Bayside Exposition Center is in walking distance of the Red Line U Mass/JFK station. There is also a shuttle. If you are driving from the south, take exit 14 off the Southeast Expressway and follow signs for flower show parking. From the north, take exit 15 and follow signs. Parking is $12.