Magazine recommends top coastal gardens

Birmingham, Ala. — Celebrate spring with a trip to a seaside garden. The March issue of Coastal Living recommends five places by the sea to enjoy the flowers of the season. They are:

• Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum, in Bristol, R.I., where you’ll have sweeping views of Narragansett Bay.
• Brookgreen Gardens, Pawleys Island, S.C., a former rice plantation that is home to flowers, birds, animals and 550 outdoor sculptures.
• Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, Mendocino, Calif., set along a rocky headland over the Pacific.
• Butchart Gardens, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a 19th-century quarry that now blooms with bedding plants.
• Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota, Fla., which has an unusual collection of epiphytes — plants that require other plants or trees for support, including certain types of orchids and bromeliads.

For more coastal gardens recommended by the magazine, go to www.coastalliving.com.

Find online deals with these ticket tips

New York — How do you get the best deal on airfares?

The March issue of Travel+Leisure offers this advice as “Ticket Tips”:

• Look for fares after midnight, when airlines reload their computers with discounted fares that were reserved but never paid for. If you want a getaway for the coming weekend, look between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, but be prepared for getting the best deals on a Saturday-Monday round-trip rather than a Friday-Sunday fare.
• Compare prices for different dates. Travel+Leisure recommends Travelocity and Orbitz as having among the most flexible search functions, allowing you to search for lowest prices at various times. For example, on Orbitz, you can search for the best deal up to three days before and after any designated date.
• Use aggregator sites like Mobissimo, Kayak and Qixo, which combine data on cheap flights from sources including airline sites and travel booking sites like Orbitz.
• Book award tickets early and online. Most airlines reserve only a tiny percentage of seats for frequent-flyer rewards, and most of these seats are set aside 330 days in advance. Also, many airlines charge higher fees to book award travel by phone or in person than paid travel, so always book online.