5 Best Sights in Washington Cascade Mountains and Valleys, Washington

Beautifully designed and lovingly tended, this 53-acre garden is one of the most beautiful in the state. Laced with peaceful paths through coniferous woodlands, open meadows, Japanese-style plantings, rock and wildflower gardens, and more, the property is anchored by a contemporary, glass-walled visitor center and gift shop. As you might expect in a tech-driven city, the garden offers a number of plantings and features with signs with QR codes that let you use your smartphone to learn more about what you're seeing. The garden adjoins Wilburton Hill Park, which offers another 105 acres of trails, ball fields, playgrounds, and picnic areas. 

The Roozen family and Washington Bulb Company established this 1,200-acre estate in Mount Vernon in 1985—it's the world's largest family-owned tulip-, daffodil-, and iris-growing business. Sixteen acres of greenhouses are filled with multicolored blossoms, and more than 200,000 bulbs are planted in the show gardens each fall. The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, held in April, is the main event, when the flowers pop up in neat, brilliant rows across the flat land, attracting thousands of sightseers. The garden and store are open year-round, and the staff is full of helpful advice for both novice and experienced gardeners. RoozenGarde is 6 miles east of La Conner. 

Just outside town, fields of tulips and other flowers grown at the DeGoede Bulb Farm provide a colorful backdrop along U.S. 12. Stroll through the manicured show gardens year-round.

On Point Defiance Park's Five Mile Drive, the garden is a 22-acre expanse of more than 10,000 plants—some 700 species, including azaleas, blue poppies, and magnolias—that bloom in succession. It's one of the finest rhododendron collections in the world.

The chief attraction in historic, 28-acre Wright Park is the 1908 glass-dome W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory, a Victorian-style greenhouse (one of only three such structures on the West Coast) filled with exotic flora.