Jewelbox Gardens of The Society of the Four Arts

If you’re vacationing in West Palm Beach, be sure to visit the gardens at The Society of Four Arts. These two adjoining small gardens are little jewels in the heart of the city, and are open to the public with free admission.

Founded in 1936, The Society of the Four Arts is one of Palm Beach’s top cultural destinations, offering art exhibits, lectures, concerts, films, and educational programs. It is also home to two libraries and two beautiful gardens—the Four Arts Botanical Gardens and the Philip Hulitar Sculpture Garden.

As you enter through the magnificent wrought iron gates, you find yourself in the botanical gardens, which were designed in 1938 to showcase the horticulture and popular gardening themes of southern Florida. A beautiful Asian-style gate with a blue tiled roof welcomes you into the Chinese Garden and its formal square water lily pool. The surrounding garden features trees and shrubs pruned in cloud formations, bonsai specimens, and Asian statuary and lanterns accented with liriope, white orchids, and camellias.

As you step into the next garden spaces, you travel through a Tropical Garden, Jungle Garden, Palm Garden, and Bromeliad Garden. The central Formal Garden is adorned with a pool and fountain flanked by sheared hedges, liriope, and roses. The Madonna Garden in the corner provides a seating area for quiet contemplation, with a marble relief of the Madonna overlooking a circular pool surrounded by white begonias. The Spanish Facade Garden features a well overflowing with succulents and vines and a bench decorated with Spanish tile. The botanical gardens are maintained by the Garden Club of Palm Beach.

The adjoining two-acre sculpture garden was designed by Palm Beach resident and prominent American couturier Philip Hulitar and opened to the public in 1980. It is home to 20 sculptures by world-renowned artists such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Jim Dine, and Lawrence Holofcener, whose Allies depicts Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

Both the botanical and the sculpture garden were redesigned in the mid-2000s by the firm Morgan Wheelock, Inc. New walkways, seating areas, and plantings were installed along with the elegant plaza paved in yellow and green Brazilian quartzite, the classical garden pavilion, vine-covered pergolas, reflecting pools, and fountains. The sculptures continue in the parking area, where Isamu Noguchi’s dramatic Intetra, a huge tetrahedron, overlooks the Intracoastal Waterway.

The Society of the Four Arts, 100 Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach, FL 33480, 561-655-7227, fourarts.org

For more information, see The Garden Tourist’s Florida: A Guide to 80 Tropical Gardens in the Sunshine State

Vizcaya: Miami's Gilded Age Estate

Vizcaya is one of the gardens included in The Garden Tourist’s Florida Tour in March 2022. See Garden Travel.
This article is an excerpt from The Garden Tourist’s Florida book, available for preorder here.

Vizcaya is a stunning Gilded-Age mansion surrounded by formal gardens overlooking Biscayne Bay in Coconut Grove. The gardens are notable for introducing classical Italian and French design aesthetics into a subtropical habitat and climate, and creating formal gardens using tropical and exotic plants.

Born in 1859 in South Paris, Maine, James Deering was a retired millionaire and a bachelor in his early fifties when he began to build his magnificent estate in South Florida. He was afflicted with pernicious anemia, a condition for which doctors recommended sunshine and a warm climate. Vizcaya became the place where he hoped to restore his health. He loved sailing and boating, and was greatly interested in landscaping and plant conservation. The creation of Vizcaya incorporated both hobbies, and became the engrossing pastime of the last years of Deering’s life.

James Deering by John Singer Sargent

Deering collaborated on the design of the villa with architect F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr. and interior designer Paul Chalfin. Deering and Chalfin spent many years traveling through Europe, collecting ideas for the Florida estate and purchasing art, antiquities and furnishings. The duo imported gilded panels, carved mantels and fresco ceilings from Tuscany and France to line the villa walls. Construction began in 1914, but it took years to perfect the mansion’s 70-plus rooms, half of which overflow with treasures dating back to the 15th century. Inlaid marble floors, stained glass doors, silk-crowned beds, hand-painted murals and Chinese ceramics all combine to create sumptuous interiors that rival palaces in Europe. Although historic in architectural style, the home incorporated all of the modern technology available at the time, such as a telephone switching system and a central vacuum system.

The gardens were designed by Colombian-born landscape architect Diego Suarez. Suarez adapted classical European Renaissance and Baroque landscape design to Miami’s subtropical climate, terrain and plant material. The gardens were divided into garden rooms and enclosed by ornate walls and hedges. Chalfin adorned them with an abundance of architectural structures, columns and urns, elaborate fountains, and antique and comissioned sculptures. Many of the architectural elements were made of local coral stone which is very porous, and weathers quickly. To further the appearance of age, mature trees were planted in the garden, along with vines and plants that would drape themselves over the garden structures.

the garden mound

The gardens are connected to the house by the large South terrace. The terrace overlooks a large geometric parterre garden bordered by two semicircular pools. A third large pool with a central island is surrounded by low hedges whose exaggerated perspective lines that dramatize the formal geometry of the gardens. The Garden Mound is the focal point of the gardens, crowned with an ornate summerhouse known as the Casino, and adorned with a grand cascade and grottos. Other garden areas include the evocative Secret Garden, the intimate Theater Garden, the playful Maze Garden, the Fountain Garden, and a charming Tea House overlooking the Bay. The formal gardens are surrounded by 25 acres of Rockland Hammock, which is the native forest in this part of Florida.

The Teahouse

The East Terrace faces Biscayne Bay and the Barge, a breakwater built to protect the house and terrace from waves. The Barge was designed to look like a boat with fancy balustrades and statuary sculpted by American artist Alexander Stirling Calder. It was constructed of local limestone, which is very porous. The salt water and storm waves have eroded the structure and its decorative reliefs, and rising water has submerged the lower landing steps.

the barge

Deering’s occupancy of Vizcaya began on Christmas Day, 1916, with an elaborate ceremony complete with gondolas, cannons and friends dressed in Italian peasant costumes. From then until his death in 1925, Deering spent the winter months at Vizcaya, usually with family and celebrity guests. A staff of 16 was required for the house, while an additional 26 gardeners and workers maintained the gardens and outbuildings. Vizcaya was designed to be a self-sufficient estate to compensate for the limited commodities and services of early 1920s Miami. Some of the staff lived in the main house, while others resided in the Village–a complex of cottages, greenhouse, garages, workshops and farm buildings that supplied fresh flowers, fruit, vegetables, milk and eggs for the household. The Village is currently being restored to tell Vizcaya’s full story and provide additional spaces for programs and community outreach.

The village, photo by 305hive.com

After Deering died in 1925, Vizcaya was eventually passed down to his two nieces. The property suffered major damage from two hurricanes, which destroyed many garden statues and furnishings. In 1945, the family transferred the Lagoon Gardens and the southern grounds to the Diocese of St. Augustine and Mercy Hospital. It opened as a public museum in 1953. Restoration efforts continue on the mansion, gardens, and historic Village. In 2021, Vizcaya restored its historic Rose Garden, which had been destroyed in the Great Hurricane of 1926. Eighty-five antique roses were selected from the Antique Rose Emporium in Texas, ensuring that the new plants will be suitable for Miami’s tropical climate. 

Vizcaya: 3251 S. Miami Ave., Miami, FL 33129. 305-250-9133. vizcaya.org
Vizcaya is open Wednesday–Monday, 9:30–5:30

Where Snowbirds Flock: Washington Oaks Gardens State Park

Nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and the Matanzas River, Washington Oaks Gardens State Park preserves 425 acres of beautiful coastal scenery. At the heart of the estate are 20 acres of formal gardens thriving in a shady hammock of towering live oaks, hickories and magnolias.

The gardens and buildings are the legacy of Louise and Owen Young from New York, who purchased the property in 1936 as a winter retirement home. Owen was a lawyer, diplomat, counsel to five presidents, chairman of the board of General Electric, and founder of RCA. Louise was a designer and businesswoman with lingerie and fine linen shops, and interests in weaving and pottery. She used her artistic talent to design the house and gardens. Despite their wealth, the Youngs built a modest home that overlooked the river, and a separate building for Owen to conduct his business.  They gradually purchased beachfront property across the road.

The gardens at Washington Oaks consist of formal plantings within a jungle setting, with elements of English and Asian garden design. The magnificent live oaks offer shade as you stroll down mondo grass-edged pathways through themed gardens and around lovely ponds. Gazebos and well-placed benches provide lovely views. Louise was a talented gardener, and filled the garden with her favorites — camellias, azaleas, orchids and citrus, all of which can be seen in the garden today. A formal rectangular rose garden is an oasis of color and perfume. Rose bushes tower to heights of 8’ and include the deep crimson Don Juan, coral Tropicana, carmine Kentucky Derby, pink Sweet Surrender, yellow Sun Flare, and apricot Medallion. 

The sandy soil and subtropical climate at Washington Oaks is ideal for growing citrus. The first orange groves here were established by John Moultrie, Lt. Governor of British Florida in the 1700s. In the 1800s, subsequent owners Joseph Hernandez and George L. Washington grew oranges and shipped them upriver by sailboat to St. Augustine. The Youngs expanded the diversity of citrus at Washington Oaks with plantings of sweet oranges, grapefruits, lemons, limes and tangerines. At one time, Louise attempted to establish a citrus business. Owen loved the orange groves, and occasionally the wealthy industrialist set up crates by the road and sold fruit to tourists.

Across the street from the gardens you will find Washington Oaks Gardens State Park beach, which is renowned for its Coquina formations. The Coquina rock is part of the Anastasia formation, which was created during the Pleistocene era (12,000 to 2.5 million years ago) and stretches from St. Augustine to Palm Beach County. Coquina rock is a type of sedimentary rock formed from shells and sand sorted by the waves. When the sea level was lower, these shells and sand were exposed to rain. The rainwater dissolved some of the calcium carbonate (limestone) from the shells, which glued the sand and shells together into rock. Close inspection of the rock reveals the individual shells and sand grains that are cemented together. The word “coquina” is Spanish for “cockle,” the small, burrowing clam that lives in the sand at the ocean’s edge.

In addition to the gardens, the park offers trails for hiking and biking,  and opportunities for birding, fishing, beachcombing, sunbathing and photography.

Washington Oaks Gardens State Park is located at 6400 N. Ocean Dr., Palm Coast, FL 32137, (386) 446-6783, washingtonoaks.org.

Hours: Daily 8 am–sunset. Admission: $5 per vehicle

Garden of Tropical Delights: Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

Located on the shore of Sarasota Bay, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens is the only botanical garden in the world dedicated to the study and conservation of epiphytes—or air plants—like orchids, bromeliads and gesneriads.

Bill and Marie Selby came to Sarasota from Ohio, and built a modest 2-story Spanish-style house in the early 1920s. Despite their enormous wealth from oil and mining industries, the couple lived a quiet, unpretentious life, and became active philanthropists in the community. They both loved the outdoors–boating, fishing and riding, and Marie was consumed with nature and gardening. She designed the landscape around their home, and was a founding member of Sarasota’s garden club. When she passed away in 1971, she left her property to the community as a botanical garden.

photo courtesy of business observer

A visit to the Selby Gardens usually begins with a tour of the Tropical Conservatory filled with thousands of exotic, colorful plants. It takes seven on-site greenhouses to supply the Conservatory with blooming specimens. These greenhouses hold the most concentrated collection of epiphytes in the world, including 6,000 orchids, and you can enjoy the annual orchid show in February and March. From the Conservatory, you pass through a bonsai collection, the cycad garden and a fern garden.

Marie planted several bamboo groves in the garden, primarily to hide unwanted views.

The Koi Pond and Waterfall is one of the loveliest spots in the garden. Shaded by surrounding trees and accented with statuary, this garden is a serene retreat.

Past the Selby House you will find an impressive stand of Banyan trees that were planted in 1939, and an immense Moreton Bay Fig, with buttress roots that form a maze around its base. This grove of trees is the centerpiece of the Children’s Rainforest Garden, complete with waterfall, canopy walk, rope bridge, grass huts, and a play research station.

Winding trails lead through a cactus and succulent garden, palm grove, hardwood hammock, and native plantings.

Since Selby Gardens is located on a peninsula, there are lovely views of the bay with seating areas where you can relax and enjoy the view. A wooden walkway leads through native red, white and black mangroves, which are critical to Florida’s ecosystem and prevent erosion of the shoreline. 

Next to the Payne Mansion, which houses the Museum of Botany & the Arts, you will find a bromeliad garden, butterfly garden, and an edible garden. 

Wonderful as a public garden, Selby is even more impressive as a research institution. Since its founding, Selby botanists have participated in more than 200 expeditions to study and collect plants. Genetic properties of plants are studied in its molecular lab. Selby’s Herbarium contains more than 113,000 dried specimens, and the Spirit Collection contains more than 28,000 vials of orchids and gesneriads preserved in fluid. The Selby Research Library holds thousands of books, journals, prints and digital images documenting plant systematics, evolutions, horticulture and economic botany. 

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, 811 S. Palm Ave., Sarasota, FL 34236, (941) 366-5731 selby.org