Sunken Gardens in Pinellas County, Florida

Photograph: Sunken Gardens Flowers.jpg by GabbyJonathan23 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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.

Pinellas County attraction

Sunken Gardens

Pinellas County · Gulf Coast

Four acres of tropical garden in a drained sinkhole in St. Petersburg, planted in 1903 and one of the oldest roadside attractions in the country.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

George Turner Sr., a plumber and gardener, bought six acres in 1903 that included a shallow lake sitting ten feet below sea level. He drained it and planted the hollow, which is why the garden is below the street and holds its own warmth. By the 1920s he had a nursery and was charging a nickel to walk through. Formal admission began in the fall of 1935 at 24 cents a head, and from the 1950s into the 1970s this was among the ten most visited attractions in Florida, a survivor of the age when a Florida holiday meant a series of roadside gardens and alligator farms. The Turner family sold it to the City of St. Petersburg in 1999 for over 2.26 million dollars and the city runs it now. Four acres hold more than 500 species of tropical and subtropical plants among pools and waterfalls, with Chilean flamingos and rescued parrots. It stands at 1825 4th Street North

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official Website ↗

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