Alan Branhagen is director of horticulture at Powell Gardens, home to the Heartland Harvest Garden (open summer 2009), the country’s largest edible landscape garden.

What attraction is Kansas City’s best-kept secret?

I think Lakeside Nature Center. It’s a little family place where you can take a short hike in the forest and see all kinds of local wildlife and really neat displays. And it’s in Swope Park, which is one of the largest urban parks in the country.

What’s your insider tip for people visiting Kansas City attractions?

Drive the boulevards from one spot to another. There’s less traffic, and they’re one of the beautiful aspects of Kansas City that maybe some people aren’t aware of. People are familiar with Ward Parkway, but there’s also Gregory Boulevard, Brush Creek, Swope Parkway. Probably Cliff Drive is the most forgotten. It’s a spectacular drive up along the bluffs of the Missouri River with views down to the valley. You feel like you’re not in the city at all—you feel like you’re in some forested, wild land.

What do you love best about Kansas City?

We have a really good park system and, again, these beautiful connecting boulevards. We brought in Prince Charles’ former gardener recently, and he was just blown away by these aspects, how the city’s laid out. We’re lucky there were people with great foresight to put that in place.

If you had visitors for one day and could only show them three places, where would you go?

Then the Crossroads District on First Fridays—you’ve got all these galleries and bars and restored buildings that are really unique to Kansas City. Also, when I have people from out of town, I always drive down Ward Parkway to Loose Park, a really nice urban park with trees from all around the world. And it’s so close to the  Country Club Plaza—you can go eat a huge meal, then go to Loose Park two blocks away and take a really nice hike and feel a lot better!