’Tis the weekend for a catchy centerpiece on the dining-room table. With Easter Sunday and Passover falling on the same weekend this year and not a sprig of flowering forsythia in sight, I can’t wing it with something snipped from outdoors. Memories of the time-honored white lily, full of symbolism, make me wonder what will be gracing tables this year.

“Hydrangeas are hot as table centerpieces,” says Teri Smith, at Smith’s Acres in Niantic. “They make beautiful blooming houseplants and can last for weeks and weeks in the house.”

Often called florist hydrangeas, these varieties come in six- and eight-inch pots. Although one of these plants might survive a coastal winter, they aren’t intended to be replanted as perennially blooming landscaping plants. Smith’s Acres will bring on the array of hardy Endless Summer hydrangeas for yards as soon as outdoor gardening season gets here.

“Spring bulbs in general are a big deal because people want that fresh color,” says Smith. The independent garden center’s signature arrangement for this season is a living Easter basket of potted daffodils or tulips, pansies and fresh herb plants. Kids of all ages enjoy the playful mixtures — and especially the daffodils and herbs, which can be replanted outdoors and largely ignored by deer.

Smith’s Acres is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., but will close at 2 p.m. on Easter Sunday, after the Easter Bunny makes its annual appearance from 9:30 a.m. to noon.

Petie Reed at Perennial Harmony, an organic perennials garden center in Waterford and landscape design business, says the big trend is in indoor and outdoor centerpiece combinations of crocus, mini-daffodils, grape hyacinth or muscari and pansies, plus lettuces.

“We use lettuce for everything now, because it can be ornamental and edible,” says Reed, who grows a variety of leaf colors and shapes, including heirloom varieties, and plant forms. “It looks great in a window box, in containers, with flowers or in mixtures by itself.”

People should grow lettuce in pots, anyway, she says, because they can move the pots around to get the lettuce in or out of the sun. Reed keeps a continuous stock of lettuces, started from seed or transplants, for customers who want to freshen up a pot or who have been eating their lettuce, as well as enjoying its looks.

Perennial Harmony, which opened yesterday for the year, will be open Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., through April, and expand to six days a week starting in May.

If you’re looking for an outdoor statement of the season, Linda Lillie of Sprigs & Twigs in Gales Ferry recommends snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis).

“I love snowdrops,” says Lillie. “They are tough, pretty flowers that are easy to grow, prefer cool climates, moist but well-drained soil and require virtually no care. They are some of the first flowers of the year, and deer and rabbits won’t eat them, hopefully.”

The Lillies have discovered that there’s a snowdrop-collecting frenzy over in the United Kingdom. Fans flock to festivals, garden and bus tours, lectures, lunches and galas. Astute collectors and growers have taken to keeping their collections secret and protected by security guards.

“It’s crazy,” says Bill Lillie, who enjoys researching the plant materials and trivia as much as Linda likes to put on presentations for curious gardeners. They’ve found eBay UK sales prices of $2,150 to $2,500 for individual bulbs of rare cultivars.

International trade restrictions on endangered species dampen the “galanthophilia,” or passion for snowdrops, over here. Prices can range from $10 for a few bulbs to $90 for a single bulb in the U.S. Snowdrop bulb clumps can be divided in spring before the bulbs go dormant. Linda recommends locating them under some tree shade.

The cabin fever has been so bad for gardeners this year that the Lillies have started putting on free weekly educational lectures at their full service landscape design, lawn and tree care and maintenance operation. Videos of the lectures are posted under the “learning” section of their website, www.sprigsandtwigs.net.

As a reader called in to point out, many of the ornamental plants we treasure are toxic to humans or pets or both. This includes all parts of the hellebore, or Lenten Rose, I wrote about last week. Easter lilies are toxic to cats. Other common toxic plants are daffodil or narcissus bulbs, laurels, rhododendrons and azaleas, larkspur and foxglove, and the leaves of rhubarb (but the stems make a wonderful pie or sauce.) For a list of plants and toxic effects, see http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/earthkind/landscape.

When she’s not gardening in Old Lyme, Suzanne Thompson hosts a weekly radio show, “CT Outdoors,” on WLIS 1420 AM and WMRD 1150 AM, Saturdays from 1 to 1:30 p.m. and Sundays from 7 to 7:30 a.m., or listen to archived show in the On Demand section of www.wliswmrd.net.