Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

We were in Sarasota this past summer.  However, as the temperatures were then in the 90 degree range, we decided to wait on seeing these gardens until cooler weather.  Time has passed quickly for us since then and we forgot about the gardens until we learned about the orchid show.  I had recently read the book The Orchid Thief  by Susan Orlean - which told me everything I would ever wish to know about orchids.  After reading that book I just had to see an extensive display of orchids!

Marie Selby and her husband built the above home in 1939 and lived in it until 1970.  She left her home and property to the local community with the aim of forming a botanical garden.  That was established in 1973.  The gardens grew over time into the surrounding properties and now covers about 15 acres.  Mrs. Selby had an extensive banyan grove which has always been a part of the gardens.  It is a fig tree that begins its life as an epiphyte when its seed germinates in the crevice of a tree.

A cousin of the banyon is the ficus tree.  In the gardens is a walkway bordered by those trees, they have such impressive names as the "lofty fig" and the "council tree".

Selby Gardens is a leader in the conservation and display of epiphytes, or plants that grow on other plants.  As we walked through the gardens we saw many plants hugging their hosts.  A beautiful example is pictured below.

Another category of epiphytes are the bromeliads.  Some of them grow in trees, other in the ground.  Examples of this family is the pineapple plant as well as Spanish moss.

Also in the family of epiphytes is the orchid.  I will feature the orchid show in my next posting.  The gardens does also have a very diverse collection of other tropical and subtropical plants from many regions of the world.  Pictured below is the dessert area of the park.  I cannot begin to cover all beautiful flora in these gardens, but I must say it is one of the best botanical gardens we have seen!

St. Cloud, Florida

Previously I had written that we had visited Lake Lake Tohopekaliga in Kissimmee.  We learned that northeast of it is East Lake Tohopekaliga, located above the city of St.Cloud.  I do not remember anything particularly interesting at that lake, we walked around its park and then drove into St.Cloud.  It is a small town noted for quite a few murals which can be found on the outside walls of its downtown buildings.  Pictured below is one of the first ones which we found.

Apparently the amaryllis is the town flower.  Many of the murals spoke to the history of St.Cloud.

The picture above is soldiers returning home after a war.  St.Cloud became important to soldiers after the Civil War when the Grand Army of the Republic established a veteran's retirement colony through the Seminole Land and Investment Company.  In 1909 35,000 acres of a defunct sugar plantation was bought and called St.Cloud.  Veterans arriving in this town could pick up deeds at the Seminole Land Office.  They began arriving in 1909, some started living immediately on their plots in tents.  The first home built belonged to G.W. Penn, it still stands in the town today.

While we were in St.Cloud it was Halloween and the trick or treaters were flowing into the downtown streets.  Local businesses had opened their doors and were handing out goodies.  So I was dodging all that activity while taking pictures of the murals.  Am sure we were a curious sight!

People, costumed or not, lined up in front of the mural waiting for candy while I quickly took the picture.  No one seemed to notice me,  maybe they are use to tourists in their town.  The mural depicts a town fire in 1917.  It was a suspicious arson fire which started in a storeroom and spread to businesses and apartment buildings.  Volunteers formed a bucket brigade to put it out.  Townspeople removed contents of two grocery stores, other businesses, post office, and residences before the raging fire forced them to stop.  Quite different from today when the most likely people to show up and remove items from buildings are looters! 
I think I will always remember St.Cloud not so much for the murals but for the fun of being in on a small town event!  Everyone knew each other and yet were very gracious to us strangers.  The fun continued in a local diner where we purchased a delicious supper.

Shells and Swans

It is hard to believe that two weeks have passed since I made the trip to Kissimmee.  A lot has happened for John and I since then, which is why I have not continued writing about that trip until today.  John had a medical issue which required hospitalization.  All is well now.
On Monday of that week my sisters and I drove to Cocoa Beach, about an hours drive east of Kissimmee.  So we are now talking about the Atlantic Ocean and not the Gulf.  That does make a difference, as I have written before, in the shells as well as wading birds we see.  It was a very cool day when we were there, jackets were needed for our walk on the beach.  Many shells could be seen scattered on the beach, which I had also noticed on the Bonita Springs Beach, a week before.  I think  that the hurricane had washed up many onto the beaches.  We were quite pleased to find a pile of conch shells, a few of which we added to our private collections.  I was also surprised to find quite a large olive shell.   Maybe you shell collectors know what I am talking about.

The pier at Cocoa Beach is privately owned, we chose not to pay the fee to walk on it.  Guess that we perhaps should have eaten at the restaurant at the end of the pier had we wanted to take in more views of the ocean.  We had a good lunch somewhere else, found a good movie to see, and then headed home in time to get Julia to the airport.

My sister Julia had to return home that Monday evening, John came to join Linda and I on Tuesday.  We continued to take short trips around Kissimmee. as well as one foray into downtown Orlando.  John remembered that he and I had once visited Eola Lake Park, a lake famous for its fountain and swans.  Strange, the first swan we saw there was a black one!

The park's lake was once a sinkhole.  A fountain (Centennial Fountain) was placed in the lake in 1912, it was replaced in 1957.  At night it changes colors like a light show.  Set against the backdrop of the city skyline, it is also quite pretty in the daylight.  Notice the swans in the foreground.

We made an interesting trip on Halloween day to St.Cloud.  More on that later.

Pioneer Village at Shingle Creek

Trying to drive around Kissimmee is a challenge because of Disney World- and this time of the year is not yet even its peak season!  We felt rather smug about avoiding that place and finding other attractions to visit, certainly ones much cheaper.  One such place is Pioneer Village.  This village is a recreation of life of the Seminole, settlers and cowmen from the period of 1880 to 1916.  In 1988 Lt. Col. William Cadsman of Yorkshire bought 8 acres of orange groves in Florida.  His wife was ready to return home to England upon seeing the Seminole Indians- but did stay.  Pictured below is their home, which had an outdoor kitchen, and bunkhouse for their boys.

James Tyson, another Florida cracker farmer, had 21 acres of land; 10 acres on which he raised vegetables.  In 1889 he married a 16 year-old girl and they had 11 children whom they raised in a modest one room home. Seems he could have built a bunkhouse too!

 

The village also has a replica of a Seminole settlement.  The native Indians of Central Florida lived in the Kissimmee River Valley on elevated hammocks or islands.  Their shelters, "chickees", were built from pine logs and palm thatch.  Floors were elevated to prevent flooding in the home.

We saw more early settler's homes as we hiked along Shingle Creek.  The creek is the headwaters to the Everglades, flowing 23 miles beginning in the north near Orlando and ending in Lake Tohopekaliga.  And it is interesting how the creek received its name- it is actually a simple explanation   Pioneers used the cypress trees from the creek to shingle their roofs.

Pictured above is the Steffee cabin, built in 1880, it is along the trail in Shingle Creek Regional Park.  The trail is multi-use and located in one of Florida's busiest urban areas.   As we found in other areas of Florida, the water level is high in the creek and brush has piled up because of Hurricane Irma.

Kissimmee, Florida

My sister Linda had her time share moved to this town, which is very close to Disney World.  She, along with my other sister Julia and myself,  then planned a rather spontaneous weekend to check out her new resort condo.  We had a wonderful visit there, and no time was spent at Disney World or the other affiliates of the company located in Orlando.  By the way, I have often wondered about the unusual name of Kissimmee, and finally learned of its origin.  It means "Heaven's Place" in the Calusa Indian language.  The city started out as a small trading post, its first name was Allendale.  It was located on the northwest shore of Lake Tohopekaliga.  One of the first things we did on Saturday was to visit the lake,  located in downtown Kissimmee.

It makes a big difference in Florida whether one is on the Atlantic side or Gulf side of the state- or in the central part of the state,  as to what kinds of wading birds may be seen.  We were in the latter, and saw limpkins as well as the black ibis along the shores of Lake Tohopekaliga.  Two birds which we have not seen so far in the Tampa area.

Pictured above is the limpkin, busily searching for his meal among the marshy greens.

While walking the pathways of the park we came upon the Monument of the States.  In 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dr. Charles Bressler-Pettis decided a statue was needed to show American unity.  He wrote to every governor of the lower 48 states asking for a rock from their state.  Upon receiving them he had them mortared into a 50-foot-tall pyramid of colorful concrete slabs.

Pictured above is a section of the monument.  Over the years more rocks have been sent from corporations, 21 foreign countries, as well as Hawaii and Alaska.  Them have been placed in nearby walkways.  Another feature of this park is a rain garden, which is lush with many plants and grasses.  Florida has recently had a lot of rainfall, and the garden now is now showing off its' full beauty.