Find your way back to nature at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Md., located within the Wheaton Regional Park. As you stroll around the myriad of gardens, you will feel the tension and stress of everyday life melting away to be replaced by a feeling of peace and certainty that coming here today was the absolute best thing you could have done.

Brookside Gardens consists of the North and South Conservatories with displays that change quarterly, and numerous outdoor gardens that include a Rose Garden, Azalea Garden, Fragrance Garden, Trial Garden with spring and summer flowers, Viburnum Garden, Camellia Garden and Winter Garden, among others. There is also a series of three Formal Gardens: Perennial Garden with perennials that bloom spring through autumn, Yew Garden with seasonal displays of flowers, and Maple Terrace with Japanese maples and seasonal flowers. If you want to spend your time in contemplation, you can visit the Gude Garden, a nine-acre garden of sculpted ponds and rolling hills and a Japanese Tea House. A Labyrinth also provides ample opportunity for contemplation.

Begin your tour at the Visitors Center where you can pick up a map to guide you through the gardens and find information on upcoming events that will bring you back again and again. From there walk to the Children’s Garden where the younger set can enjoy the Eastern Woodland Indian Garden and crawl through a large hollow log of a 125-year-old Sycamore tree. Follow the paths from the Children’s Garden in whatever direction strikes your fancy to find bright seasonal flowers, flowering shrubs and trees. Linger in the Trial Garden with bright, beautiful flowers and in the Fragrance Garden with its bubbling fountains and fragrant herbs, shrubs and vines.

One of the most exciting displays at Brookside Gardens is the live butterfly exhibit, Wings of Fancy. In its 12th season, this exhibit features Asian, Costa Rican and North American butterflies that fly freely, surrounding visitors with their beauty. Brookside Gardens allows you to enjoy the butterflies up close and personal with a series of photography workshops, limited to 10 photographers each. In addition, you can attend a two-day workshop that focuses on photographing the butterflies and flowers. Youth group tours of the butterfly exhibit are available as well.

You can also visit the Outdoor Butterfly Garden beginning in May through late fall on the west side of the Conservatories. There you will see butterflies native to Maryland in all stages of the life cycle from the eggs, to the caterpillars to the chrysalides to the adults.

No matter what the season or the weather, you can always visit the glass-covered conservatories, which have displays that will delight. Spring comes to the conservatories from mid-January to April 13, with orchids, camellias, jasmine and a variety of bulbs and flowering plants. Beginning April 26, summer arrives with colorful tropical plants that will remind you of the tropics of South American or Asia. The fall brings chrysanthemums and other fall flowers and winter features evergreens and other flowering plants of the season.

Brookside Gardens is open daily, sunrise to sunset, and is closed on Dec. 25. The Visitors Center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the Conservatory, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. To reach Brookside Gardens, take the Washington Beltway, I-495, to Georgia Avenue toward Wheaton. Drive three miles north and turn right on Randolph Road. At the second traffic light turn right onto Glenallan Avenue and go to 1800 Glenallan Avenue. Brookside Gardens offers events, workshops, excursions, demonstrations, lectures and children’s programs that are too numerous to mention. For information, call 301-962-1400 or visit www.brooksidegardens.org.

Accessible parking is available, and wheelchairs can be borrowed from the Visitors Center Information Desk, where you can receive a recommendation for a tour that avoids steps and steep hills.

For information on having a wedding, private reception or corporate retreat at Brookside Gardens, call 301-962-1404.