When describing Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, one word comes immediately to mind: unique. First, there?s the location. Visitors reach the garden entrance via a narrow cobblestone street flanked with historic homes, once a residential neighborhood and now part of the 14-acre gardens. Bordered by the blue-green Gulf waters of Sarasota Bay and overlooking the skyline of downtown Sarasota, the gardens offer breathtaking and unexpected views waiting around every corner.
Clockwise from upper left: Dendrobium hybrid, Laeliocattleya ?Phra Nakhon Khiri,? Cattleya quadricolor ?Marcia,? Psychopsis ?Mariposa?
- Biggest Draw: Tons of Orchids
The garden?s unusual locale creates a perfect backdrop for its equally-unexpected plant life: it?s said to be the only botanical garden that specializes in epiphytes; plants that do not take nutrients from the surfaces on which they live. Epiphytes can be divided into three types: bromeliads, ferns and the much-loved orchid.
Selby Gardens? focus on epiphytes offers advantages for garden staff. Since the so-called ?air plants? are not dependent on soil or the object or plant to which they attach themselves, they can be moved around to create new displays or for closer study. In that way, Selby Gardens are always changing, and visitors will marvel at how no two visits are ever the same.
For orchid lovers, a visit to Selby Gardens offers an opportunity to view thousands of live orchids ? and even purchase some varieties from the gift shop.
This designation is a tie between the Moreton Bay Fig, whose massive above-ground root system makes the tree seem like something out of The Hobbit,?and the?Tacca integrifolia ?Nivea,? or white bat flower, which was installed in anticipation of Halloween. Though the Tacca is not an epiphyte, it feels right at home among tropical orchids and bromeliads. The meat-colored flowers lure flies and beetles, and some species even smell like carrion (luckily for Selby visitors, not this one!)
Not until I visited Selby did I learn that Spanish moss is not actually moss, but a bromeliad. Its scaly leaves are able to capture moisture and nutrients from the air, making the ubiquitous plant ?pictured here growing on a Sand Live Oak ? self-sufficient.
Cost: $17 adults, and children 12 and up; $6 children 6-11
Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. every day, with these exceptions: Closed Christmas Day, and closed at 3 p.m. Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and New Year?s Eve.
Contact: www.selby.org
Location:?811 South Palm Avenue,?Sarasota, FL 34236
Source: http://blog.hgtvgardens.com/road-trip-tropical-delights-at-floridas-marie-selby-botanical-garden/
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