The New York Botanical Garden: The Big Apple hosts a South American tropical paradise each spring when The Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern takes over the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Running through April 12, the event (now in its seventh year) showcases thousands of lush, brilliantly hued orchids, as well as bromeliads and other plants native to Brazil. Of course, the garden is about much more than orchids; springtime highlights include grape hyacinths, pandanus, lilacs, irises and roses.

Butchart Gardens, Victoria, British Columbia: Hundreds of thousands of flowers burst into bloom at this horticultural wonder, still owned by the descendants of its founding family. Flowers such as pansies, scillas, daphnes and forsythias come out to play around March; as spring progresses, catch crabapples, fritillarias, flowering dogwoods, poppies, peonies and fuchsias. Nearly as interesting as the gardens themselves is their history: A one-time limestone quarry is now the Sunken Garden, for instance, while the Butcharts’ former tennis court is now an elegant, tulip-filled Italian Garden.





The Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis: The nation’s oldest botanical garden — marking its 150th anniversary this year — is a riot of color each spring, entertaining guests with lovely views of crocuses, camellias, rhododendrons, tulips, snowdrops, clematis, cyclamens, orchids and intensely fragrant sweet olive. The Linnean House conservatory is fronted by a magnolia-lined walkway that virtually showers visitors with the flowering trees’ sweet, heady scent.

Portland, Ore.: This city has a reputation for being rainy and gray, but all that moisture makes it very green, especially in the spring. A must-see is the serene Japanese Garden, which a former Japanese ambassador to the U.S. called “the most beautiful and authentic Japanese garden in the world outside of Japan.” Another flowery oasis is the Classical Chinese Garden: This walled garden in the heart of downtown surrounds visitors with orchids, lotuses, gardenias and jasmine and shuts out the nearby hustle and bustle. And no trip to the Rose City would be complete without a stop at the Portland Rose Gardens, where more than 500 rose varieties bloom each spring.

Chicago: Grant Park’s charter states that it will remain “forever open, clear and free.” That’s a boon for visitors because the park is a downtown gem, a green area situated between the high-octane Loop and Lake Michigan. The park fills with flowers as the city wakes up from the Midwest winter; you could entertain yourself all day soaking in the sun and the diverse plant life. While you’re in Chicago, be sure to see the Garfield Park Conservatory, which is often called “landscape art under glass.” The conservatory’s spring flower show runs through May 10, spotlighting hundreds of azaleas and hydrangeas.

Austin, Texas: There’s no better place to appreciate the nation’s wildflowers than at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Part of the University of Texas at Austin, the facility is devoted to conserving, growing and demonstrating the beauty of wildflowers and native plants. Take a walk on some of the Wildflower Center’s miles of trails to enjoy meadows full of blooming prickly pear, Texas redbuds, asters, phlox, showy primroses and, of course, bluebonnets.

The Skagit Valley, Washington state: Springtime makes this verdant valley in northwest Washington explode with color, carpeting the land with hundreds of acres of tulips, daffodils and irises. The area is best known for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, which runs throughout April and was featured in “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.” Display gardens abound throughout the valley for you to visit, but you can also enjoy the living jewels without getting out of your car: Many of the flower fields lie right next to the road.

Vizcaya, Miami: The Old World gardens at Miami’s Vizcaya estate — originally the waterfront winter residence of industrial magnate James Deering — are nearly a century old and are considered to be among the finest examples of Renaissance gardens in the U.S. Topiary-style trees and shrubs and mazelike hedges set off fragrant, warm-weather florals; don’t miss the splendid “orchidarium” for a glimpse of these colorful masterpieces.

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco: Also home to such attractions as the de Young Museum and the Academy of Sciences, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park features a half-dozen gardens that sparkle in the spring, including areas devoted to roses, tulips and native California plants, as well as flowers mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. You can also find a host of exotic tropical flowers in the Conservatory of Flowers, which dates from the 1870s and is one of the oldest wooden conservatories in the country.





Great Smoky Mountains National Park: The wide variety of elevations and latitudes in this 800-square-mile park — which straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee — makes for a wide variety of flora in these misty mountains, part of the southern Appalachians. More than 1,500 flowering plant species have been identified here, including flame azaleas, columbines, dwarf irises, larkspurs and mayapples. Be sure to see the “heath balds” — treeless, high-elevation areas that are home to thickets of mountain laurel, rhododendrons and sand myrtle.

Washington, D.C.: Is there any more iconic rite of spring in the U.S. than the bursting of the cherry blossoms in the nation’s capital? The delicate sakura are some of the most striking and beautiful symbols of D.C. The perfect way to take them in is to stroll around the Tidal Basin next to the National Mall — lined by more than 3,000 cherry trees, a gift from Japan in 1912. The pink-and-white blossoms are expected to be at their peak this year from April 3-9.