You knew there had to be one, didn’t you, Road Trips Gardeners?

The West Virginia Dandelion Festival will be held May 24 through 28, 2012, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

There’ll be all sorts of vendors, but we’re willing to bet that none will be selling dandelions. You will see, however, most store fronts decorated with dandelion themes.

The event, now in its fifth year, is sponsored by White Sulphur Springs Main Street.

(Photo by Philippe Ramakers)

A Rhododendron Festival will be held in downtown Mentone, Alabama (map), May 19 and 20, 2012.

For more information on visiting Alabama’s De Kalb County, go online.

(Photo courtesy of DeKalb County Tourist Association)

Did you know that tree houses have something to say? According to professional tree house creator Pete Nelson, they speak in an ancient language and the message is universal: climb up and be in harmony with nature. Let go of earthbound encumbrances and be free. Tree houses possess a transformative power and as soon as you climb through their threshold, you re a changed person. Being held up by the trunk and branches of a tree, surrounded by the raw energy of nature, the soul is inevitably rejuvenated and the spirit lifted.

Nelson shares his tree house creations and stories at the Denver Botanic Garden, 1007 York Street, Denver, Colorado, May 24, 2012. A reception with goodies prepared by Slow Food Denver begins at 6 p.m., followed by the presentation and a book-signing. Tickets are $20 (but they can sell out, so if you’re sure you’ll be in Denver then, buy one in advance online).

He has traveled the world creating masterpieces of arboreal architecture, sharing his deep-felt passion and training with a new generation of tree house builders and dwellers. Nelson designs and builds tree houses as Nelson Treehouse and Supply. He is the co-founder of TreeHouse Workshop, started in 1997, that teaches hands-on tree house design and construction. He is also the co-founder and host of the Global Treehouse Symposium. His most recent undertaking is Treehouse Point, an environmental tree house hotel and retreat center in Issaquah, Washington. Nelson is the author of several books including his newest, New Treehouses of the World.

American state legislatures spend time debating which flower best represents their state.

In Kansas, the choice was obvious: the sunflower (specifically Helianthus annuus). Next door in Missouri, it’s (inexplicably) the hawthorn blossom (Crataegus), which is more common in the southern part of the state than the north.

In Iowa, they decided on the wild prairie rose (Rosa pratincola). Nebraska went with the (atchoo!) goldenrod (Soldiago gigantea) and Colorado with the Rocky Mountain columbine (Aquilegia caerules).

What’s your state’s flower? If you don’t know, check out this list.

If you needed another reason to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri (map) here’s one: the Lantern Festival is May 26, 2012, through August 19, 2012.

The fest, titled “Art by Day, Magic by Night” showcases 26 huge and elaborate lanterns designed specifically for the festival and placed throughout the 79-acre garden. The artistic steel and silk lanterns depict characters and symbols from Chinese legend and culture — that’s one of them in the photo.

They range from 10-foot-tall towering terracotta warriors and Chinese opera masks to porcelain dragons rising from the garden’s fountains in honor of the Chinese zodiac’s Year of the Dragon in 2012. The three-story-high “Heavenly Temple” lantern is modeled after the famous Imperial temple in Beijing.

At night the Garden will host special events that feature the illuminated lanterns in a display of lights and colors on Thursdays through Sundays. Evening activities will include authentic Chinese acrobatic performances, tea ceremonies, and Chinese craft and art demonstrations including calligraphy, spun sugar candy creations, opera mask design and tea presentations.

Visitors can experience the quiet solitude of a Chinese garden with a stroll through the Margaret Grigg Nanjing Friendship Garden within the Missouri Botanical Garden. The garden, designed by a Chinese-born architect, was modeled after a scholar’s garden near Nanjing, St. Louis’ Chinese sister city. Plantings native to China including pines, bamboos, willows, forsythia, wisteria, lotuses and peonies are set among an ornate Chinese pavilion, a hand-carved white marble bridge and boulder-filled gold fish pond.

Opened in 1959, the Missouri Botanical Garden is the oldest public garden in the nation and counted among the Top Three public gardens in the world. Visitors attending the Lantern Festival also can enjoy the Garden’s other features which include a Boxwood garden; two rose gardens; a Children’s Garden; 28 demonstration gardens within the Kemper Center for Home Gardening, a Victorian garden, a recreated tropical rainforest within the Climatron geodesic dome and the largest authentic Japanese garden in North America.

For more information about St. Louis, go online.

(Photo courtesy of Explore St. Louis)

The Trade Secrets sale in Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills is a chance to shop for treasures from nearly 60 growers and vendors of plants and garden antiques.

The sale, scheduled for May 19, 2012, at LionRock Farm in Sharon, Connecticut, is followed on May 20, 2012, with a tour of four private gardens.

Visitors can see a presentation by Marina Marchese of Red Bee Honey, a boutique farm known for an edible garden as well as its honeybees.

The tour will feature two perennial favorites, the gardens of Bunny Williams and John Rosselli and the 41-acre futuristic estate of Jack Hyland and Larry Wente. Two new gardens this year are the Linden Hill Farm owned by Richard deBart and Debra Blair, and Hawk Hill Farm owned by Robert and Jane Keiter.

For the 12th year, all proceeds from the annual event go to Women’s Support Services, an organization aiding victims of domestic violence.

Tickets for the rare plant and garden antique sale are $35 for regular admission from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and $100 for “early buying” tickets. Tickets for the garden tours are $70.

For more information on the area, contact the Western Connecticut Visitors Bureau.

(Photo courtesy of Trade Secrets)

The 105th annual Rhododendron Festival takes place May 18 through 20, 2012, in Florence, Oregon.

The celebration officially begins on Friday evening (May 18) with the Rhody Pageant to crown “Queen Rhododendra.”

The American Rhododendron Society Festival Flower Show & Plant Sale is set for 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday (May 19 and 20), in the Florence Events Center.

Activities throughout the weekend include parades, flower show, car show, arts and craft fair, 5K run and carnival (all the hallmarks of a great community fest).

This year’s theme is “Nothing Short of Wild.”

Your Road Trips Gardener confesses that she can’t positively identify these colorful blooms.

Our photographer snapped ‘em on Parrot Island in the Brazilian province of Santa Catarina (that’s about an hour south of Rio de Janiero, Brazil).

Can anyone tell us what they are? What’s your favorite wildflower?

(Photo ©2008 by Susan McKee)

National Gardens & Parks Day May 11, 2012 (the day before Mother’s Day) kicks off Garden & Park Festivals Season in and around Boston, Massachusetts, with events ranging from “Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill” to the Rhododendron Festival at Heritage Museum & Gardens in Sandwich, Massachusetts.

Here are some highlights for Road Trips Gardeners traveling in New England this spring.

• The 104th Lilac Sunday Celebration is May 13, 2012, in Harvard Univeristy’s Arnold Arboretum.
• Tour date for the 83rd Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill Tour is May 17, 2012, in Boston, Massachusetts.
• The Rhododendron Festival at Heritage Gardens & Museums in Sandwich, Massachusetts, runs May 19 through 27, 2012.
• The annual Gardener’s Fair Massachusetts Horticultural Elm Bank in Wellesley, Massachusetts, is May 20, 2012.
• It’s the 23rd year for the Garden Tour sponsored by the Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts, set for June 1 and 2, 2012.
• A Spring Garden Tour takes place June 3 and 4, 2012, in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.
• The 19th South End Garden Tour Day takes place June 16, 2012. Starting point is the Boston Center For the Arts.
• The annual Garden Tour in Rockport, Massachusetts, is July 7 and 8, 2012.
• The 16th Massachusetts Marketplace is August 4, 2012, at the Massachusetts Horticultural Elm Bank in Wellesley.

(Photo courtesy of Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill)

You’ll need to hurry, Road Trips Gardeners: Floralia, a flower exhibition ends May 6, 2012, at the castle of Groot-Bijgaarden, Isador Van Beverenstraat 5, Groot-Bijgaarden (Brussels), Belgium.

The park, which is about 14 hectares, incorporates nearly all spring varieties — about 500 — among its one million bulbs.

The tulips are divided into three categories: early flowering, midseason and late flowering but may also be labelled as classic triumph, botanic tulips, lily flowers, viridiflora, parrots and multi–flora.

Among the narcissi and daffodils are rare varieties, including the papillon narcissus.

There are also muscari, wild tulips, violets, azaleas and rhododendrons. Indoors, there’s an exhibition in the castle’s newly restored greenhouse.

The castle grounds were designed at the beginning of the 20th century by the garden architect Louis Fuchs, designer of numerous parks in Belgium.

(Photo courtesy of Floralia)