Outside the Zone

Miami Beach Botanical Gardens

You’d be hard pressed to find two more different places in the United States than Miami Beach and, say, Riverton, Wyoming, or Salida, Colorado. Well, or just about any place in the Rocky Mountains. You won't find Carharts or North Face on this Florida beach. Too hot. Temps in the low 90s the first week of October, and humid. Beachgoers move slow in light cotton clothes. Bikinis and thong suits standard.

One day while attending a trade show at the Miami Beach Convention Center, I spied a sign across the street, over a narrow entryway in the Vine Collection border that said: Miami Beach Botanical Garden. Naturally curious, I grabbed my camera and took a break from the show.

Within its 4.5 acres are a number of discrete areas: The Palm Grove, Bromeliad Garden, Heliconia Garden, South Florida Native Garden, a Japanese Garden with pond, Butterfly Garden, and the Great Lawn, now host to a 10' x 15' sculpture made from 18 pieces of Guadua bamboo, fanned skyward. But my favorite was the mighty Banyan Tree. There are a variety of pretty palms, too, but they are common throughout South Florida.

Well-concealed buildings include an auditorium for programs, offices and meeting rooms, an orchid nursery, and a small shop that sells plants.

In bloom this day were more than a half-dozen flowers, including Firebush (Hamelia patens), Silver vase (Aechmea fasciata), Dwarf pomegranate (Punica granatum), and Red ginger (Alpinia purpurea).

Admission is free. Learn more at mbgarden.org

―Dan Spurr

Butchart Gardens

Last summer Andra and I took our annual boat cruise through the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound, Washington. This year our primary destination was Victoria, British Columbia, at the south end of Vancouver Island. Our purpose: to see the famous Butchart Gardens a 13-mile bus ride from downtown.

The 55-acre grounds were originally a limestone quarry for a Portland cement plant, owned by Robert and Jennie Butchart. Beginning right after the turn of the 20th century, Jennie and laborers from the cement plant transformed the hole in the ground into what is now called the Sunken Garden. Over the years they added the Rose Garden, Japanese Garden, Star Pond, Italian Garden, Mediterranean Garden, and other attractions. Now it’s a full-fledged tourist attraction, with restaurant and, of course, a gift shop.

The hundreds of flowers and plant species are not identified by markers in the ground, as is often seen. Apparently the thought is these would detract from the visual impact of the gardens. Instead, you’re given a small booklet with the most popular and common species pictured, so as you walk through the various gardens you find yourself flipping its pages to identify what you’re looking at.

Coming from zone 4 in the Rocky Mountains, the profusion of color—red, pink, and yellow—was at first breathtaking, but after an hour, it was almost too much. The rain forest and the desert are different aesthetics, and while it’s fun to travel and experience other climates, you just might come away appreciating my home plantings all the more.

Designated as a National Historic Site of Canada, you can learn more at butchartgardens.com

―Dan Spurr

Pelindaba Lavender

If you’ve visited San Juan Island in recent years, you may well have stumbled across an unusual store downtown, called Pelindaba Lavender. You won’t have easily forgotten it, because everything in the store is made from lavender, distilled from plants grown on a 20-acre farm north of Friday Harbor.

Started 10 years ago by South African-born Stephen Robins, more than 25,000 plants grow in neat rows on gentle valley slopes, with a pretty lake at the bottom. The harvest is protracted from July to September; some is bundled and hung in the Drying Barn, the rest is distilled for essential oils and turned into a wide variety of products that include skin care, bath, candles, lemonade, dog biscuits, and a whole lot more. What wasn’t made from real lavender is still about lavender: photographs, paintings, and jewelry. On the farm and inside the stores (there’s one at the farm, too, and another in downtown Seattle), everything is the color of lavender.

The name? Pelindaba is the Zulu word for “Place of Great Gatherings.” pelindabalavender.com.

―Dan Spurr

Hortus Botanicus

During a recent trip to Amsterdam (the Netherlands that is) last November I had occasion to visit the Hortus Botanic gardens, situated on 1.2 hectares in the heart of the city, close to the Amstel River. It was founded in 1638 as Hortus Medicus for the purpose of growing medicinal herbs and where pharmacists and physicians could be trained in their use. Its collections expanded in 1682 and the name shortened to Hortus Botanicus, though everyone in the city just calls it the Hortus.

Today the gardens are home to more than 4,000 plant species from across all continents, or about 2% of all species growing on Earth. It specializes in cycads, South African plants, palms, conservatory plants, and carnivorous plants. Of much pride to the Hortus is a 300-year-old Eastern Cape giant cycad, said to be one of the world’s oldest potted plants. And how about the giant water lily (Victoria amazonica) that has been much admired at the Hortus since 1859? These and many others were brought to Amsterdam by the Dutch East India Company, which sailed the world trading in many goods, including herbs and spices.

Also of interest is the systematic Semicircle garden, in which DNA, rather than external characteristics, determines the relationships among plants.

At first blush it wouldn’t seem many plants in this vast collection would survive in the Northern Rocky Mountain region, but on closer inspection, that is not the case. Representing seven climates, there are plants and trees in the Hortus from just about every corner of the Earth, including some that will grow in North American zone 4.

The Hortus is located within walking distance from the city center, just across the Amstel River. Cost of admission is 7 euros. There’s a pleasant little café on the premises, as well as restrooms.

―Dan Spurr