If you enjoy the outdoors and the beauty of nature, you may enjoy visiting botanic gardens. Most cities have at least one, where you can view the local plant life as grown by the locals at any given season. These include trees, flowers, herbs, and more. It’s a great activity for a beautiful day, alone or with a date. Here are some of the prettiest around America.
Lewis Ginter Gardens: Richmond, VA
The Lewis Ginter Gardens feature 50 acres of over a dozen themed gardens. These include the Asian Valley with plants from around the continent of Asia, a huge rose garden, and a children’s garden for families with kids. It also has a “domed conservatory”, a rarity in the U.S. and especially in this region.
Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens: Fort Bragg, CA
These gardens cover 47 acres along the California coastline, so they provide a rare ocean view from several of their gardens. They even have an area for coastal bluff- and marine plant life, a unique feature that isn’t available in most botanic gardens. There are also opportunities to volunteer in the vegetable garden and the woodlands among others.
Denver Botanic Gardens: Denver, CO
If you’re interested in seeing how plant life can thrive in the desert, then this is a great garden to visit. They have a “Gardens of the West” area which shows off native plants from arid, dry climates and is very educational. They also have a great water lily and Japanese garden section.