Area public gardens are beautiful destinations for an early fall getaway

Public gardens are beautiful, educational and the perfect destinations for late summer and early fall trips -- and Northwest Indiana is just the right distance away from some spectacular examples.

Near Buchanan, Michigan, Fernwood Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve offers glorious gardens surrounded by forest on 105 acres along the scenic St. Joseph River valley. Its trails, art gallery, fern conservatory, nature center, café and gift shop are all enriched by regular classes, workshops, lectures, concerts, trips and special events. Fernwood will be open on Labor Day weekend, and will feature the Railway Garden with its new Roadside Attractions exhibit, Sculpture Fernwood, and Larry Jensen's hand-carved Turning Timbers exhibit. On September 10, live monarchs will be on display, and a local expert will discuss the monarch life cycle and the Monarch Watch tagging program, followed by a Botanical Plant Names program on Sunday, September 11.

The extensive grounds at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island are also worth the trip, with their topiary of galloping horses, an icon of this island where cars have been banned since 1897. It is here that each fall one ton of bulbs are planted -- including 25,000 tulips and 15,000 daffodils. In the spring, more than 125,000 bedding plants are used in creating the many gardens on the Grand Hotel grounds, which includes a fountain and the 500,000-gallon swimming pool used by Esther Williams when filming at the hotel in 1947.

Bordered by the White River which flows through downtown Indianapolis, 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, part of the Indianapolis Art Museum (IMA), is one of the largest museum art parks in the U.S. Designed to present art projects, exhibitions and discussions that will strengthen public knowledge of the reciprocal relationships between contemporary art and the natural world, the park features site-responsive art works. Landscape Journeys, networks of pedestrian paths, lead from its entrance to the inaugural artworks, the Ruth Lilly Visitors Pavilion and the 100 Acres' many natural features such as a lake, marsh and meadow. 100 Acres abuts to the 54-acre grounds of the IMA, which also features lovely gardens such as the formal and historic gardens centered around the Oldfields-Lilly House & Gardens, a National Historic Landmark. The Oldfields gardens were designed in the 1920s by Perceval Gallagher of Olmsted Brothers, the famed firm that created Central Park in New York.

Cantigny, the 500-acre estate of Colonel Robert McCormick, has something for everyone including a golf course, two restaurants and the 38,000-square-foot First Division Museum at Cantigny, as well as a wonderful mansion filled with antiques. But it's the gardens that most amaze. Given the task of creating an important American garden in 1967, Franz Lipp created the 40-acre Formal Garden, a compilation of 20 plant specific garden areas that give both amateur and professional gardeners creative landscaping ideas. The sites, such as the rose garden and prairie/savannah garden, are so lush and well planted with meandering pathways that Cantigny is often on professional garden tours. But there's plenty for kids to do here too, such as learning activities, family backpack activities and play areas.

Tulip Time in mid-spring, when more than five million tulips bloom, is a popular event in Holland, Michigan. But even after the tulips' bright colors fade away, garden aficionados will still want to visit Windmill Island Gardens, just blocks from the city's historic downtown. A 36-acre delight of blooms, canals and dikes, the island also features costumed interpreters following the pathways that connect the Dutch-style shops selling such goods as wooden shoes, clocks, foods and fudge, and the 249-year-old DeZwaan windmill, one of the few wind-powered gristmills in the country. Alisa Crawford, certified as a journeyman miller from the Netherlands' Professional Cornmillers Association, grinds flour available for purchase. Other attractions include klompen dance performed by girls dressed in folk costumes, layers of socks and wooden shoes, a vintage Amsterdam street organ and an exact replica of a 14th-century wayside inn.