Southern Shorts
A Touch of Japan
Enjoy the largest Japanese garden outside Japan at the Morikami Garden and Museum in Delray Beach, FL. The attraction honors memories of the Yamoto Colony, a Japanese farming community founded in South Florida more than a century ago. The gardens span six different time periods and Japanese styles. The garden's Bonsai Collection displays more than 100 miniature trees from six inches to four feet tall. Visit www.morikami.org. Roses in Shreveport, LA
Experience nature at its finest when you visit the Gardens of the American Rose Center in Shreveport, LA; it's America's largest park dedicated to roses. This spring you'll discover winding paths, babbling brooks and 20,000 roses in bloom.
The gardens will stay in bloom until the first week of June. Afterwards, there will be sporadic color as the roses continue to bloom until the first frost. Visit http://www.ars.org/ARC/gardens.html.
Roanoke Gardens
Horticultural enthusiasts often enjoy the Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke Island near Manteo, NC. Open year-round, the gardens serve as a memorial to the first English colonists in the New World, the so-called "Lost Colony of Roanoke" that vanished without a trace in the 1680s.
Adopted by the Garden Club of North Carolina in 1951, the gardens feature antique statues; period furniture; rose and herb gardens; and other native shrubs, flowers and trees. In spring (mid-April is peak), the gardens bloom with azaleas, dogwoods, rhododendrons, vines, herbs, bulbs and spring annuals.
In summer, visitors can expect to see sweet-scented gardenias, roses, magnolias, crape myrtle, lilies, hydrangeas and summer annuals. The peak blooms are usually in mid-July. Autumn brings bedding plants, hibiscus, chrysanthemums and impatiens, while winter is a time for camellias. Call 252-473-3234 or visit www.elizabethangardens.org.
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