Flowers and mushrooms and blossoms! Oh, my!--Spring brings tourism dollars

All it takes is a glance around any location in Northwest Michigan to figure out what one of the area's biggest draws is--nature.

Here in Northwest Michigan, locals are lucky to be surrounded by some of Mother Nature's finest work: the cascades of blossoms that grace the limbs of cherry and apple trees, the morel mushrooms that push their way from the ground, or the trilliums that dot the landscape with their brilliant white petals.

This time of year marks the beginning of the tourism boom for our region, and there is no doubt a big part of it is because of all nature provides. Local businesses and visitor's bureaus have noticed, that's for sure, and are doing their part to promote it.

Take Black Star Farms, for example. This winery doesn't just rest on the idea that their tasty products are what get them business. Instead, they provide an inn and several special events surrounding the natural beauty of the area, including an interesting mushroom-lovers excursion that comes around once a year when the morels are popping out of the ground.

"This has always been a good area for morels and when this area started to be known as a great foodie and wine destination we wanted to be a part of that," says Coryn Briggs, director of marketing for Black Star Farms. "We started this event (six years ago) to give people the option to come and find the elusive, gourmet morel mushroom."

Folks who participate in the hunt are welcome to keep the mushrooms they find, but the real treat comes in the form of some outstanding morel-based hors d'oeuvres and dishes created by chef Jonathan Dayton and served at their inn.

The menu is chock-full of delicious items like a warm morel mushroom and fiddlehead fern salad (complete with toasted pine nuts and wild leek vinaigrette) or a morel mushroom consommé with duck confit goat cheese ravioli and pea shoots. Top that off with a filet of beef with morel mushroom bordelaise and then a sweet wild mushroom custard tart with Sirius Maple reduction and spun sugar and it is pretty much foodie and mushroom-lover heaven.

And morel season (which is actually huge in Northwest Michigan, as you can see here) isn't even the busiest for Black Star Farms, which often sees its nine rooms getting booked up tight between June and October while tourists flock to the area to see the beaches, dunes, forests and more.

Another big draw to the area this time of year is one with less in the way of tasty morsels to bring home and a lot more to do with visual consumption. Cherry and apple blossoms bloom in a big way in Northwest Michigan, especially on the Leelanau and Old Mission peninsulas. It's such a big draw, in fact, that some folks, like those over at MyNorth.com, keep track of how the blossoms are blooming and report it for the world to see.

For those who don't want to set their vacations to a particular time frame but still want to experience all that can be found in Northwest Michigan during the spring, simply go for a drive. Take, for example, M-119 out of Petoskey headed toward Harbor Springs and beyond. This section of road, known as the Tunnel of Trees, offers everything from dark conifer trees to glimpses of Lake Michigan to what seems like a blanket of trilliums in the undergrowth of the forest. North of Harbor Springs, you'll come into the "tunnel," with trees growing up tightly to the road and hanging overhead. It's a gorgeous drive, if nothing else.

If you're more the kind of person who likes to get out of the car and get up close and personal with nature, there are a slew of options for you. For one, you can forage for many items throughout Northwest Michigan this time of year, ranging from the above-mentioned morels to fiddlehead ferns to wild leeks, wild turnips, dandelion and more.

Want to do less eating? Then help save a wild plant or two. Both the Grand Traverse Conservation District and the Leelanau Conservancy have programs that help save native plants and wild flowers. Both groups are always looking for volunteers.

"The Native Plant Rescue Program works with willing landowners to save native plants that would otherwise be destroyed," says the Grand Traverse Conservation District website. "Teams of volunteers from the community travel to these properties slated for development to identify, properly remove, and transport the native plants. Digs take place in cooler, wetter months of the spring and fall, which is optimal for the plants. To date, more than 2,000 native plants have been rescued in Grand Traverse County as a result of the program."

The rescued plants are then sold at the Grand Traverse Conservation District's annual native plant sale or used in conservation projects.

"Every time I see a new driveway or house going in and we missed a chance to dig up the wildflowers there before the bulldozers arrived, it makes me crazy," says Patty Shea, co-founder of the Leelanau Conservancy's Wildflower Rescue Committee. "If people would just let us spend a few hours there ahead of time they would be doing the world a great favor."

For more information on how to volunteer or to let volunteers remove native plants for a future building site, visit the Grand Traverse Conservation District or the Leelanau Conservancy websites.

Sam Eggleston is the managing editor of the Northwest Michigan Second Wave and a full-time freelance writer. He was born and raised in Michigan. His favorite spring time treat? The morel mushroom, of course. Eggleston can be reached via email.