McKee Botanical Garden – Vero Beach, Florida2 min read time

The annual pass I purchased at Bok Tower & Gardens in December has paid for itself by using the reciprocity feature.  This time I drove across the state to McKee Botanical Garden in Vero Beach, Florida.

This is one of the older tourist attractions in Florida and has been revitalized!

Some details from Wikipedia:

“The McKee Botanical Garden (area of 18 acres (7.3 hectares)) is a non-profit, subtropical botanical garden in Vero Beach, Florida. It is located at 350 U.S. Highway 1, Vero Beach, Florida. It was founded in 1929, when Waldo Sexton and Arthur G. McKee purchased an 80-acre (32 ha) tropical hammock along the Indian River. Tropical landscape architect William Lyman Phillips was hired to design its streams, ponds, and trails. Its indigenous vegetation was augmented with ornamental plants and seeds from around the world. In 1932, they proceeded to open the garden, then known as McKee Jungle Gardens, as a tourist attraction. Although the Garden was successful for several decades, it shut down in 1976, and most of its land was sold for development. The site remained vacant for twenty years until the Indian River Land Trust purchased it in 1995.

The current Garden was formally dedicated in 2001. It is now a Florida landmark and on January 7, 1998, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places under its former name of McKee Jungle Gardens. Currently, there are several buildings on the garden including the office, gift shop, education center and a restaurant.”

The gardens:

The garden is full of ponds and streams with Water Lilies everywhere.

This garden is the place for water lilies!  They have several beautiful varieties.

In a variety of bright and luminous colors!

They are so elegant and delicate looking.

There are other types of flowers, as well, scattered about the gardens.

There is an old, very southern looking wooden building with info on the history of the garden.  Also,  it contains one of the longest tables I have ever seen.  They built it out of one tree!

But I have to come back to the gorgeous water lilies!

So if you are in Central Florida, I recommend a stop at McKee Botanical Garden.  Check out their website for details on exhibits and events.

Please visit my gallery for these and other images from my visit to this Florida attraction.

That is all for now.

Lynn