Garden of dreams

Today my mom and I visited the Harry P. Leu gardens here in Orlando (finally!). It's so beautiful! I could not believe that all this beauty was hidden in here. From the outside of the gardens you can't see anything. But once you get inside, it's breaktaking! The admission is $5 but they were having a free weekend. What a great surprise! We walked up to the museum entrance, which is this big two-story colonial style house, and were given brochures.

Today the Camellia Society was there demonstrating all the different varieties of camellias. There had to have been over 500 different flowers on 10 different tables! They were even selling camellia bushes. I didn't get one. I'm still trying to get mine to bloom this year.

We walked out of the museum and headed for the gardens. This place is humungous! The first trail is the tropical one. I saw a bunch of varieties of tropical plants. We came up to this cute cottage and butterfly garden next. It reminded me of something you'd see in the country. Then, we headed for the rose garden.

The roses are amazing! I have never seen this many in one place. Their colors are so vibrant and the blooms smell so good. I didn't want to leave! There is a fountain that greets you as you enter the rose garden. And on each ends of the garden there are these beautiful gazebos. Towards the end of the rose garden a bubbling semi-cirular fountain awaits. From here you can see the Harry P. Leu house. We left the rose garden and walked along another path towards, my favorite, the palm garden.


I love palm trees, especially Queen palms but, there're all great! There were bird of paradise and one was in bloom. A Japonese orchid tree was welcoming us with its pretty lavender flowers. And I saw a very tall Aussie tree fern! I even saw some plants that I've never seen before. I wanted to ask someone if they were rare exotics. But there wasn't a guide around. (And yes, they do have guided tours here).

Another trail up we found the House of Garden Demonstrating. It was already closed by the time we arrived but, we got to see alot of plants that are Florida friendly. I saw alot of ones I have in my home garden. I loved the way they were arranged. I got lots of ideas for up and coming projects.

The day ended lovely. We didn't get to see everything but, I know we'll be back soon. As we were getting ready to leave we took a last sit-down break on one of the porch rockers of the house museum. One of the chairs was broken and a head employee told me that it was going to be thrown away. I jumped on it. It's a great rocker. The guy told us that they buy the rockers from Cracker Barrell. The rocker only had a slight broken leg. Not a problem to fix. So, today I didn't have to buy a souvenier. I got one for free! We had a great day. And I can't wait to come back.