Known for its annual riot of cherry blossoms each spring, Traverse City, Mich., stays green and blooming all summer long. Explore the Botanic Garden at Historic Barns Park, where the farmland of a former 19^th-century mental asylum transformed into a series of ever-expanding healing gardens and a walled garden resplendent with Michigan wildflowers, a labyrinth and waterfalls. There’s also an outdoor pavilion and a landscaped visitor’s center housed in an old granary that dates to 1886 and which has an underground tunnel.

Outside of town on the Old Mission Peninsula, Brys Estate Vineyard and Winery is the location of The Secret Garden at Brys Estate, where the lush lavender gardens are positioned near strawberry and blueberry patches, an herb garden and where hillside picnics can include lavender lemonade and five flavors of handcrafted Moomer’s Ice Cream flavored with the garden’s fruits, all available in the garden shop.

West of the city, The Iris Farm boasts more than 1,000 varieties of hybrid German Iris plants on six acres, plus hundreds of varieties of hybrid daylilies and Asiatic lilies that bloom from the middle of July to early September. Prefer decorative landscapes? Visit Sunnybank on Sixth Street in town, a private garden belonging to writer-gardener-musician Dee Blair, who created a Victorian-era themed space segmented into three outdoor “rooms,” with walls, doors, door art and fences handcrafted by the Blair family. Guests enter after ringing a bell at the entrance to alert residents a garden lover has arrived to stroll the paths, enjoy a book or simply relax within the fragrant spaces.