I grew up on a farm, my uncle is a retired county horticulturalist, but as for me, I can’t keep a plant alive. I have a whole other level of appreciation when I have the opportunity to visit spots like the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. Yes, they have beautiful gardens, but I quickly found out there was so much more to explore. The downtown Sarasota campus has beautiful views of the bay, a rainforest exhibit built for kids and an active koi pond. They also call themselves a “Living Museum” and what that means is they continue to change exhibits and programs on their campuses. While the Florida Road Trip crew was at the Downtown Sarasota campus, they had “Tiffany: The Pursuit of Beauty in Nature” to showcase the connection between the famous glass art and nature. How these artists incorporated the installations with the gardens was inspiring (check out some of the photos below). They also have an additional campus, Historic Spanish Point. There you will find Florida native plants and the regions only butterfly house. If you walk inside, be on the lookout for the zebra longwing, Florida’s state butterfly.
In addition to beauty, the Downtown Sarasota campus is home to a large collection of bromeliads and orchids. It includes more than 5,000 living plants and more than 100,000 dried and pressed specimens along with the second largest collect of specimens preserved in fluids in the world.
For more on the history of the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, watch the video below: