Last Garden Visit in Florida

One more trip to a State Park and National Historic Site at Koreshan in Estero, near Fort Myers. It doesn't seem like a place to see a botanical garden, but the site of this historic community is surprising in many ways.

The Sunken Gardens

The Rustic Bridge

The White Bridge

The Koreshans planted many sub-tropical plants including a Monkey Puzzle tree

and an African sausage tree, but we didn't see them.

Could this be one of the two?

Another Trip to The Edison Gardens in Spring

On our third trip with visitors to the Edison Gardens, I saw many more plants in bloom than I had in January and February.

The pergola connecting the two houses was covered with vines.

And from the shrubs below, more blooms.

Around the corner of the wide porch, I spied this scene.

And leaving the gardens, I noticed this spider orchid blooming.

Spring Scents and Scenes in Florida Landscapes

Rounding the corner of the carports at my sister's condo in Naples, I smelled them before I saw them.

Jasmine!

We later visited Lakes Park in Fort Myers. There is a lovely Fragrance Garden there.

We were met by this plant, which was a kind of lily.

And nearby, another Lily in a different shade.

This one was brilliant orange against the large, textured leaves.

A bromeliad in bloom

Passion flower vine on an arbor

African Iris

 Chenille Plant

It's enjoyable to stroll around a park near water 

and enjoy looking at plants you've never seen before.

Sad Story of a Butterfly

The three Monarch caterpillars I brought home on a butterfly plant from The Edison Home and Gardens Sale in Fort Myers a few weeks ago, surprised me by eating almost the whole plant and growing round and fat and attractive with their yellow, black and white stripes.

Maybe too attractive!

First, I was missing one. Then two more disappeared. I looked all over for them or their cocoons for a couple of days.  One afternoon, we backed out of the garage to find a white egret in the front bed near the butterfly plant, looking all around and not even caring that we were nearby in a moving car on the driveway.

Poor caterpillars! Never to be Monarch butterflies!

Selby Botanical Garden in Sarasot

We visited this lovely garden today on our way back from Tampa.

We enjoyed the Koi in the pond

and the watearfall.

The garden was in the midst of a tribute to Paul Gauguin's trips to Tahiti.

The plants were tropical--Bird of Paradise, for example.

And banana plants, too.

We imagined ourselves in Tahiti, but the temperatures

were in the 70s--and not as tropical as we've been experiencing.

It was a really pleasant day to explore a rainforest, a bamboo grove,

a fern garden and coconut palm groves along Sarasota Bay.

The orchids and bromeliads were incredible.

This botanical garden is famous for its epiphytes,

plants that grow on other plants 

without harming them.

Update on the Monarch Caterpillars

 They are getting fatter everyday.  I'm missing the third one.  Where could it be?

Today

A couple days ago

A few days before the above

More Tropical Plants at the Butterfly Estates

Welcome to Butterfly Estates

Great murals on the walls outside

And the colors inside the butterfly

 greenhouse were fantastic, too.

All the colors of an

artist's palette.

The butterflies were too busy

to catch in a photo.

I loved their slogan:

A beautiful garden is a

work of heart.

The Unfamiliar Becomes Familiar

The mystery of the odd-looking blooms from a plant at the Manatee Park has been solved!  Today I visited the Butterfly Estates in Fort Myers downtown.  I showed the tour guide in the butterfly conservatory and she was very familiar with the plant.

It is Giant Milkweed, a tropical version of our New England Milkweed plant.

It is not native to Florida but the Monarchs love it.

And the Monarchs stay in Florida year-round.

The leaves look familiar, but those blooms are truly unfamiliar.

It is now identified for me after much searching online.

It is hardy in Florida and can grow to tree-size.

Lesson learned: Just ask an expert.

This Wildflower is Familiar

It's a Butterfly Weed plant I bought at a plant sale

at the Caluse Nature Center in Fort Myers.

It was covered with these lovely orange blooms as shown above.

The next time I looked at the plant, it looked like the photo below.

The seed pods (which I hadn't noticed at all) 

were splitting open just like familiar Milkweed.

Closer inspection showed this:

A Monarch Butterfly caterpillar eating the leaves and pods!

What luck--and in February!