McKee Botanical Garden in Indian River County, Florida

Photograph: Pathway - McKee Botanical Garden - Vero Beach, Florida - DSC02990.jpg by Daderot · CC0 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Indian River County attraction

McKee Botanical Garden

Indian River County · Atlantic Coast

Eighteen acres of tropical hammock at 350 US Highway 1 in Vero Beach, and what is left of a much larger garden.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Arthur McKee and Waldo Sexton bought eighty acres of hammock here in 1922, meaning to plant citrus, and worked out fairly quickly that what they had was worth more left standing. McKee Jungle Gardens ran for decades as one of the attractions people stopped for on the drive down the coast. It closed in 1976, beaten by the larger parks inland, and most of the ground went under condominiums in the years after. Eighteen acres survived. Volunteers began restoring what was left in 1994, and the garden was formally dedicated under its present name on November 18, 2001. More than ten thousand native and tropical plants grow here now, including one of the larger collections of water lilies in Florida. The Hall of Giants and the Spanish Kitchen, both built in the original garden, have been restored. A children's garden designed by the landscape architect Emmanuel Didier opened in January 2020

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official place website ↗

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