Pastimes and passions, such as gardening, have their national and international associations. Along with websites and periodic gatherings, some sponsor annual conferences and scholarly tours.

Shows
Housed in cool cavernous settings in early spring, many shows are peopled by commercial exhibitors: growers, landscape designers, nursery or garden suppliers, offering innovative as well as traditional products and services. They stage promotional sessions usually characterized as “educational” workshops. You’ll be tempted with free samples, catalogs, calendars, seeds, pens and the like.

Often, nonprofits like garden clubs or defined interest groups (iris, bonsai, native plant, rose or horticultural societies) use convention space to inform, fundraise and recruit new members. Brochures clutter their tables and display racks.

In the United States, the state cooperative extension service, forestry or natural resources agencies are there to promote horticultural best practices with science, research-based literature and possibly a presentation.

These garden fairs come with competitions for the best displays, sometimes rated by attendees, frequently by independent judges with one of the nonprofits.

From the massive to the minor, garden expos have their followers. The late May open-air Chelsea Flower Show in London distributes its much-coveted tickets to precisely 157,000 visitors. Attracting more than 250,000, in early March, the Philadelphia Flower Show promises equivalent garden drama.

Join the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) online for $73 and you’ll get discounted tickets and special access to the RHS’s Chelsea Flower Show. An $85 membership in the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society confers similar privileges at the Philadelphia show.

Tours
Garden tours take you on local or international excursions through private or public gardens, botanical parks and arboretums, flower plantations, tropical tangles or arctic-alpine terrain for one day, one month, whatever your budget allows or the tour decides; from self-guided to groups led by prominent horticulturalists, garden writers or naturalists.

In the United States you’ll find weeklong tours from late April through June. Some span the entire season with weekly opportunities to visit a regional cluster of homes and gardens.

Purpose & Cost
Why the garden hopping or show stopping? Create a purpose to narrow your focus and deliver more benefits than random idle entertainment.

Food, lodging and travel: is it worth your time and money or should you propagate more plants, borrow more books, subscribe to more magazines, cruise the Internet or repurpose more inventive tools?

Location
Will the location and expected displays provide insight into current practices or are you looking to expand your knowledge base about another part of the world, another climate, or exotic topography?

Tools
Bring a notebook, sturdy shoes, layered clothing, over-the-shoulder daysack and camera.

Share
Share your tour in real-time on Facebook or Twitter; in more expanded form when you return. Unless specifically allowed, resist the urge to transport plant materials, including seeds from other countries or other U.S. states.

Reflection
Back in your garden: What will you change or celebrate? The simplest adjustments you’ve learned may capture the light, lighten the soil or turn a dull corner into an amusing recess. It’s all good.

TIP OF THE WEEK
Tuck pant-legs into your socks or garden boots to discourage ticks from beginning their ascent to more luscious body parts. Gather shirts into pants waist, and sleeves into gloves. Bare arms detect their scramble to more secluded areas, so brush or blow them off. Do a tick-check in your clothing, hat included, and on your body before you come in for the day.