Spring flowers, budding trees and green grass frame DC's most iconic sights during a drive along the George Washington Parkway © Barbara Noe Kennedy

George Washington Memorial Parkway Not a garden, per se, but one of the prettiest drives

around can be found on this flower-bedecked, National-Park-maintained roadway, especially the stretch between Alexandria and Georgetown, on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. The ornamental show begins with blankets of daffodils in early spring, seguing to dogwoods, redbuds and tulips later in the season, with peerless views year-round of the sparkling blue Potomac and Washington’s dazzling marble-white monuments rising beyond. Pride of place is Lady Bird Johnson Park, the handiwork of the garden-loving First Lady, which showcases a springtime spectacle of daffodils, red tulips and dogwoods.