Minnesota Landscape Arboretum’s Stars of Spring

Join the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum for its “Stars of Spring” show as it celebrates not only its 60th year anniversary, but its ranking as the country’s top botanical garden in the 2017 USA Today Readers’ Choice Awards as well—an honor that’s well-deserved and easy to see why if you’ve ever spent any time walking through the 1,200-plus acres of gardens, tree collections, prairie, woods and trails.

To commemorate such momentous achievements, Duane Otto, the mastermind behind the arboretum’s tulip collection for the past three decades, has carefully crafted and tended to a panorama of petals that features 38,000 budding tulips in brilliant and vibrant shades of blue, lavender, violet, pink and silvery white spread out over a number of gardens across the grounds.

Where to find them:

• Griggs Annual Gardens: 10 beds with 20,750 bulbs
• Gatehouse Entry Garden: 5,200 bulbs
• Morgan Terrace Gardens: 200 bulbs
• Home Demo Garden: 1,000 bulbs
• Snyder Building Spiegel Entrance Garden and Terrace: 1,200 bulbs
• Flagpole Bed outside Snyder Building: 750 bulbs
• Snyder Sidewalk Bed: 800 bulbs
• Oswald Visitor Center Entry: 3,600 bulbs
• Terrace Gardens
• 60th Anniversary tulip garden

When:

Visit Thursday, May 10, 5:30 p.m. for a first-look preview. Tickets are $10 member, $20 non-member, $5 children ages 15 and under. Also included in the price of a ticket are light refreshments, expert talks on tulips and an informal garden tour. And if you can’t make it for the preview event, don’t fret. The show will go on for as long as the weather cooperates throughout the season. If you’re just looking to visit the arboretum and not partake in the event, general admission tickets run for $15, and children 15 and under get in free.

The “Stars of Spring” show is the perfect way to bid winter adieu for a handful of months and welcome what’s sure to be another spectacular Minnesota spring and summer.