By JUDY A. TOTTS Home and Garden Editor

Bugs and beasties usually don’t come to mind when you picture the gardens of Stan Hywet, but this year they popped up all over the grounds, thanks to artist-in-residence P.R. Miller and the students from four northeast Ohio schools. Miller, an industrial artist dedicated to sculpting from castoffs and found objects, worked to jump start the kids’ imaginations and incorporate a lesson in recycling.

The creations — 100 of the critters — peer out from foliage along the trails that wind leisurely around the 70 acre estate and guard the treehouses scattered throughout the gardens. They join the wonderfully crazy flowers created from steering wheels and curly wire.

The bugs and buds are part of Stan Hywet’s Great Garden Adventure program, sponsored by Goodyear and the Omnova Solutions Foundation and inspired by Richard Louv’s book, “Last Child in the Woods,” to help children connect with nature.

While the kids have fun with a secret tunnel, a crazy maze and spotting frogs in the lagoon, grownup guests can soak up the beauty of heirloom roses and the serenity of the Japanese garden, as well as the English garden redesigned by Ellen Biddle Shipman in 1928. The only fully restored Shipman garden open to the public, it features 3,000 plants and 112 varieties.

At the end of the season, the Japanese garden will be closed for an extended period for restoration work, both to keep water out of the manor house basement and to revitalize a water collection system in a green technology move for irrigation.

And if the kids can enjoy a secret tunnel to the house, adults have two of their own version of passageways, the London Plane Tree Allée, originally called the Sycamore Vista by landscape architect Warren Manning, from which many smaller walking paths through the property originates, and the Birch Allée Vista that leads from the manor house to the twin tea houses.

“In fall, it’s really spectacular,” said Donna Spiegler, Stan Hywet’s communications manager, as she led the way down the stone and gravel path to the tea houses.

Cuttings of lilies and hydrangea from the Great Garden adorn the house in skillful arrangements, an echo of an elegant time in the manor’s history. But no matter where you walk, it’s a feast for the senses, with carefully tended broad rows of yarrow and coneflowers, lush asparagus ferns, Japanese silvergrass and stonecrop.

The butterflies flitting through the Palm House aviary of the Mary S. and David C. Corbin Conservatory will charm visitors of all ages. Rose swallowtails and Cattle Heart butterflies feast on sliced fruit while others play hide-and-seek in the bird of paradise and Moses in the cradle plants.

“Some of them don’t know they can fly yet,” said staff member Mary Kay Stanley, explaining several butterflies had just been released into the aviary. “Trying to see them is a little like ‘Where’s Waldo.’ You have to look closely to find some of them.”

Plan for a day’s play at Stan Hywet and pack a picnic lunch to enjoy at the shaded tables — or have lunch in a horse stall in the carriage house converted to museum shop and café.

Take home a bit of Stan Hywet’s beauty through books available for purchase, including books on the estate itself and titles geared toward turning your own yard into a showpiece, like “Stone in the Garden,” “The Intimate Garden” and “Tending Your Garden.”

Audio garden tours are available to enhance the self-guided strolls around the grounds.

Totts may be reached at religion@ohio.net or 330-721-4063.