Every year around this time it feels hard to believe that spring is coming. Right now in Wellesley snow is still on the ground, the trees are bare, and the temperatures are not expected to creep even as high as 60 degrees anytime soon. Keeping the faith is a challenge.

The Boston Flower & Garden Show has had no such crisis of faith since 1834, when the event started out in Faneuil Hall more as a country fair than what is today a showcase for backyard suburban paradises. At the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston through March 17, the show’s theme this year is “The Beauty of Balance.” Wellesley’s own Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Interim Director and President Suzanne Maas serves as Show Chair, and Hannah Traggis, Senior Horticulturalist at MassHort is Vice Chair of the flower show.

Mass Hort also manages all the amateur competitions at the show, which include floral design, amateur horticulture competitions including plant rooms, bay windows, individual house plants/horticulture exhibits, and junior horticulture, Ikebana display, miniature gardens, and photography.

Here are a few pics from my wander through spring bottled up in a vast convention center and put on display for the masses, hungry for a glimpse of what is to come.