Heritage Garden—History and Spring Flora
With the sculpture of Carolus Linnaeus watching over, this garden celebrates the heritage of botanic gardens and the beauty of spring blooms. Based on the design of an early botanic garden in Padua, Italy, the Heritage Garden contains beds devoted to medicinal plants, geographic regions and plant families. As part of the spring celebration, 74 handcrafted English trough containers are artfully planted with a rainbow of tulips, violas, forget-me-nots and dozens of other brilliant cool-season annuals.

English Walled Garden—Springtime Charm
Inside the walls of this garden, you’ll find many charming spring scenes. The structure of the formal garden’s architecture softens with the informality of early daisylike windflowers in pink, blue and white. In midspring, the timbers of the pergola are covered with wisteria vining above a mixed border of cool-color hyacinths. The octagonal pool of the vista garden is surrounded by beds of elegant multicolored tulips. Along the long border outside the garden, look for a changing display of blue hyacinths, orange fritillaries, black and white tulips and dramatic foxtail lilies.

English Oak Meadow—Field of Flowers
In early to midspring, this hillside is awash with drifts of daffodils in variations of yellow, orange, pink and white. Later in the season, brilliant warm-weather perennials color up the sloping meadow, which buffers the Dwarf Conifer Garden and the English Walled Garden.

Japanese Garden—A Season Revealed
A place of meditation and contemplation, the Elizabeth Hubert Malott Japanese Garden offers glimpses of spring beauty to garden visitors. With every step, carefully composed views change to reveal a new spring tableau. The brilliant but short-lived blossoms of magnolia, cherry, crab apple and azalea contrast with the sturdy evergreen pines, which symbolize long life and the timelessness of nature.

Mary Mix McDonald Woods—Natural Beauty
Take a walk through McDonald Woods to enjoy the beauty of native woodland wildflowers. In May, look for an abundance of large-flowered trilliums. Their petals turn from white to pink as spring progresses. Trout lily is easy to spot too with its mottled leaves and white lilylike flowers. Less common, prairie trillium also has mottled leaves with reddish-brown petals. And look up ... American plum trees display showy white flowers, and nannyberry branches droop with clusters of small white flowers.