The first significant tropical botanical garden in the United States opens this weekend in Naples, Florida, designed by some of the country's leading landscape architects. Brian Holley, executive director of the new Naples Botanical Garden described it as "a world-class tropical paradise that is not only a sensory delight but also a place for recreation, reflection and education for today and generations to come."
The garden officially opens to the public at 11AM EST on November 14th, a year ahead of schedule. The opening includes the Brazilian Garden, pictured above, a tribute to Brazilian artist and landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx and to the great tropical diversity of Brazil. The garden was designed by landscape architect Raymond Jungles of Miami, who also contributed the garden's main centerpiece, a huge ceramic mural created by Marx.
The Caribbean Garden features a Pre-Columbian garden with plants native to the region, but also three others: an Explorer's Garden, the Plantation Garden and the Citrus Garden, with plants brought to the region by European explorers and others.
The garden was designed by Laguna Beach, CA landscape architect Robert Truskowski, an expert in Caribbean landscapes.
The Children's Garden, pictured above, is an inter-active garden with a Butterfly House, tree houses, waterfalls, a fire tower, a maze, and whimsical plantings.
The designer is landscape architect Herb Schaal, whose specialties include educational gardens for children and contemplative gardens for health care facilities.
No public garden in Florida could go without reference to the Everglades, so landscape architect Ellin Goetz created a River of Grass, using native cultivars, to represent this dominant state feature.
The garden also includes a 90-acre nature sanctuary, home to giant pines and ancient cypress trees, marshes and wetlands that serve as a wildlife corridor for otters and bobcats, hawks and eagles, migrating ducks and many other birds. An upland area with nature trails is home to more than 55 endangered gopher tortoises.
And, there's more to come .. in 2010, the Naples Botanical Garden expects to open its Asian and Florida gardens.
(images: Naples Botanical Garden)
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Posted by: warrior | November 14, 2009 at 03:55 AM