I'd agree with pretty much all the sites already mentioned, and add the emphasis on getting to know the ones local/regional to you in SE Wisconsin. The rest are pretty window dressing and cool places to see plants, but with little applicability to your gardening possibilities. This is a way to prioritize where you invest your efforts, and gain the most value. Additions not yet mentioned (colder upper Midwest sites): **Chicago Botanic Garden **Hidden Lake Gardens **Secrest Arboretum **Dawes Arboretum **Stan Hywet Gardens **Kingwood Gardens **Minnesota Landscape Arboretum Places that aren't often considered arboreta/botanic gardens, but are a treasure of plant collections, landscape maintenance, and high visibility: **Every cemetery in the rural landscape style (Spring Grove Cemetery, Cave Hill Cemetery, Lexington Cemetery, Mount Auburn Cemetery, etc.) **Many many zoos (Cincinnati Zoo, Evansville Zoo, etc.) **Many many parks **Many many college campuses (UWisconsin, UIllinois, Michigan State University) **Many state capital grounds **Large wholesale nurseries (for you, Johnson's Nursery and any of the Klehm family properties should be must-visit locations) As you might imagine, you could make this part of your lifestyle if able to loosen the shackles of everyday thinking. The most mundane trip to the grocery becomes an excuse to take the long way 'round just to see plants that you've not driven past before. Always carry the digicam to record things. Finally, a list of my favorites: **Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati OH **Bernheim Arboretum, Clermont KY **Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville KY **All the Olmsted parks, Louisville KY **Lexington Cemetery, Lexington KY **UK/LFUCG Arboretum, Lexington KY **Cincinnati Zoo, Cincinnati OH **Secrest Arboretum, Wooster OH **Dawes Arboretum, Newark OH **US National Arboretum, Washington DC **Washington DC - esp. the downtown streets/landscapes **Dunbarton Oaks, Washington DC **Evansville Zoo, Evansville IN **Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis MO **Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain MA **Polly Hill Arboretum, North Tisbury MA **Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College, Swarthmore PA **Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square PA **Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia PA **Donald Kendall Sculpture Garden at Pepsico, White Plains NY **Morton Arboretum, Lisle IL **Chicago Botanic Garden, Chicago IL **Boerner Botanic Garden, Milwaukee WI **UW Arboretum, Madison WI **Durand-Eastman Park, Rochester NY **Highland Park, Rochester NY **Biltmore Estate, Asheville NC **JC Raulston Arboretum, Raleigh NC **UGeorgia Botanical Gardens, Athens GA **Washington Park Arboretum, Seattle WA **Ruth Bancroft Garden, Walnut Creek CA **Eddy Arboretum, Placerville CA **Huntington Botanic Gardens, Pasadena CA ...to name a few.

In the Bay Area... I second the UC Botanical Garden. (I'm a member, it is a gem.) Nearby you can visit our beautiful Redwood Regional park. Walk the French Trail & the Chown Trail for a good workout among huge trees and an amazing stream. Wear your hiking boots, it can be muddy in February. Along Skyline Boulevard, between the Botanical Garden and Redwood Park is a place called Huckleberry Nature Preserve. It is a beautiful, mostly flat mile or so long trail that has an interpretive guide. In San Francisco, you could have a great time walking through Golden Gate Park and Crissy Field. Strybring Arboretum is fabulous, and there is a living roof on the new science museum that is pretty cool. Walk up the hill from Crissy Field to Pacific Heights and enjoy the mansion gardens. (Hint, there is not a weed or fallen leaf for blocks and blocks.) Sonoma Horticultural Nursery is a great place to visit, even if you don't want to buy anything. Their grounds are fabulous-acres and acres- and some of their rhodos will be in bloom by then. There is a demonstration garden outside Sonoma called Crossroads (I think.) It is series of changing gardens done by designers. I could go on and on... Here is a link that might be useful: East Bay Regional Parks

It is in St. Petersburg, down on the waterfront. It is an incredible museum. They have 96 of his works and he is the only artist shown in the museum and it is the number one attraction in St. Petersburg. The best thing about visiting there are the docents. They are incredible! They must take a test on all 96 paintings and know them all. However, on the hour-long tours, they show you maybe 20-25 of them and tell you what they know. There are lots of symbolism and double-imagery and it helps if a docent explains. So, you could take three different tours in the same day and hear completely different things each time. The paintings are fascinating and Dali was a genius. I loved every minute of it. See link below. Just by chance, we attended one of their Coffee with a Curator lectures. The lecturer was their head of security and the talk was on Art Theft. I learned SO much! Art is the third-highest stolen object after money and weapons. Dali is one of the most, if not THE most stolen artist of today. I can tell you that Dali Museum takes security very, very seriously. Carol Here is a link that might be useful: The Dali Museum

What a lovely gift!! As Ginny said a bit more info about where in the state would help. One thing to be aware of is that spring is prime time for ticks in NH. Some of them are relatively large, but the small deer ticks are the ones that carry Lyme disease. When working in brushy areas I tend to wear long pants tucked into my socks, a long sleeved shirt and a hat, and when I am done working, change all my clothing and check myself thoroughly for ticks. Spraying clothing with bug repellent containing DEET helps also. Any ticks I find go into a vial of alcohol and clothing goes outside or into the washing machine after a quick check to find any obvious ticks. Lyme disease isn't something you want to pick up! Here's a link to a thread from last year suggesting several great NH nurseries (I am pretty sure all the listed nurseries are in the southern part of the state, but range from E to W,) and it also has a link to a 2006 or 2005 list of New England nurseries. Some of the northern MA nurseries may be close to your sister's place. Where you are in the southern part of the state will make a difference as it's probably about 2 hours from Keene to Portsmouth. Also, where you are will affect the seriousness of deer problems you have. In more suburban areas with less hunting and habitat, feeding from deer can be a problem. I'm in a rural area just a few minutes north of Concord and although there are lots of deer, the only plants that I can't grow due to deer are yews and Tricyrtis/Japanese toad lily. There are so many other food sources available that they don't bother to visit my gardens except to snatch a real treat. The seacoast is zone 6, but most of the southern part of the state is zone 5 with some of the hillier areas around Keene and my river valley location are probably on the border of zone 4, but all are in the southern half of NH. I mostly plant for zone 4, but sometimes zone 5 for things I really want with the knowledge that if we have a particularly cold winter and poor snow cover, I may lose them. I don't know what type of budget you have, but often soil improvements can be found locally relatively inexpensively. Many cities and towns have composting programs that make it available to residents. Local dairy farms will often deliver a huge dump load of manure, and horse manure can often be found for free if you are able to pick it up, but it will have more weed seeds. Mulch can also be found from various commercial suppliers by the dump load, which will probably be an important part of the low-maintenance aspect of the garden. Three acres is a large space, so you may want to consider some smaller heavy equipment. You may also be able to find someone to run a tractor for you for brushhogging, moving rocks, moving dirt, etc or if you are comfortable with machinery, bobcats and tractors can often be rented. We have been happy using Carl Mattews equipment in Boscawen. (I laughed when DH bought a small tractor many years ago, but as I age, the ability to move things with that tractor instead of my body makes it one of my favorite gardening tools now.) Some general thoughts on gardening in NH: Depending on where your sister's house is, you will probably have lots of granite (this is the "Granite State" after all) though on the coast and in the Merrimack Valley soil is sandier (or on some areas of the coast there is a layer of marine clay a few feet down) and there may be less rock in general. For building walls, rough field stone is often used while edging, patios, steps, etc are frequently made of dressed granite. It's something you have to keep in mind in planning a garden, that you will probably have a goodly amount of rock mixed in with soil and you may have shallow bedrock or boulders too large to move that you need to work around. We buy dressed granite from Swenson Granite Works in Concord, which is our local granite quarry for items like steps, but that may not be the best choice for you if you are looking to build something that needs dressed granite if you aren't close to Concord. With good planning fall color can last for 6 weeks or more, with the red maples starting the show in September and the blueberries, Fothergilla, Viburnums, oaks, and beeches ending the color at least a month and a half later. It is my favorite time of the year and well worth planning for in the garden. We are lucky to have many natives that are stunningly beautiful in autumn. Because so much of our year my garden is deeply snow-covered, I do try to grow plants that extend the season of interest and plant gardens that can be viewed from the house in winter. Herbaceous plants and short shrubs that stay green in cold weather usually aren't of huge value in my yard during winter since we often have more than 4 feet of snow on the ground. I try to plant a few things in warmer areas on the south side of the foundation that will bloom early like snow crocus, reticulated iris, and snow drops to get some early flowers. I plant taller evergreens (larger shrubs and trees) along with woody plants having interesting bark (beech/Fagus, birch/Betula, Stewartia, Acer griseum/paperbark maple, red and yellow twigged dogwoods/Cornus ) or interesting branch stucture (Pagoda dogwood/Cornus alternifolia) to provide winter interest. I also leave up my clematis obelisks year round since they tend to look nice against the snow. Many folks have bird feeders and bird-friendly shrubs to bring in some extra winter (as well as other seasonal) activity as well. I don't since we have blackbears emerging from dens in just a few weeks and they enjoy birdfeeders a bit too much. Tell us a bit more about your goals for your sister's garden beyond low maintenance - do you want easy or wheel-chair friendly paths or good visibility from a patio or porch? Does she have someone to help with basic mantenence such as an annual cleanup of easy care perennials like type 3 (hard prune) clematis or Baptisia? Will she want chair-accessible raised beds near the house for a few veggies and herbs? Is the garden all on one level? Are you looking to put in almost all trees and shrubs? Are flowers or scent or colorful foliage important? Hope that wasn't more info than you wanted or needed! Here is a link that might be useful: NH nurseries thread