What have you seen out there that you love? Pls share pics if you have them!

Pics from a recent visit to Sanford, FL (near Orlando.)

Ran out of time yesterday to get into this. Every one of the following pics is from a rental. I rented this garden for 4 days!! I spent a total of at least 30 hours just admiring, wandering around, sitting and staring.





















How old is this bird of paradise??!

More rented garden pics:

More rented garden:

More rented garden:








I was told by the manager of the property that the owner's wife had died about a year ago and "usually the property looks really good" and she apologized. Can you wrap your mind around that? These pics show a garden for which the manager was apologizing??!

And oh yeah, there was a house included too, which was incredible in its' own right, a 1930's craftsman, lovingly cared for all of these years, with mostly original furnishings, but of course it was the garden that stole my heart. All but a couple of the pics of a bar area were part of the garden around the house we rented. There were other rental units there but they were in other buildings that share the parking lot, and weren't "in" the garden. Even the parking lot was landscaped!

With no pessimism involved, this may be the high water mark for best garden vacation rental of my life. I'm not a fancy person and still love tent camping, but from now on, when looking at rentals, I'm going to want to see the garden. LOL!! This seems like a category that should have a checkbox when searching "must have garden." I could care less about free wifi, just gimme plants!

I like your idea for a "must have garden" checkbox."

Tiffany, love the photos, looks like a lovely place to rent. That area of Sanford is where my best friend and for a time, SIL grew up, her grandmother's house is close to that blue house you pictured, I recognize it. For awhile it was on the Sanford historical homes tours, but now has new owners and was taken off the tours. We go to downtown Sanford often and always take ride by her grandmother's house, it's on Park Ave.

It does look like a beautiful garden to play with. I noticed that big begonia with the white flowers, looks like an Odorata Alba and they have a faint scent in the morning and evening. I like the German restaurant in Sanford, it is touristy but my grandmother cooked food like that.

Sherri, thank you! The blue house...! Sigh! Do you ever get tired of seeing so many gorgeous plants around Sanford? Where you are is probably similar, not far away.

Alice, it never occurred to me to sniff a Begonia. If they're making "gramma food" in that restaurant, I want to go there even more. YUM!

Well, it is German gramma food. But you should definitely try it, it is fun. They also have a German deli, beer garden, and a store that sells German clothing like lederhosen and dirndl skirts - just in case you need any. (Who buys that stuff?)

Thank you! This is making me hungry!

Tiffany, Winter Springs isn't as old as Sanford, I think the old homes with such established landscaping is what makes Sanford so quaint. Mt. Dora/Leesburg are like that also. Most like St. Augustine for the main tourist strip, however my husband and I like to ride our bikes around the back streets and look at the historic homes with charming landscaped gardens.

Alice I've been to the German shop a few times, the guys like to get a beer there. Sanford Historic District is a fun place to go and walk around, lots of little events go on downtown, the Breezeway restaurant has some good food, nice outdoor eating.

Sherri, you would have loved Beaufort, SC, the town where we used to live. There is actually some "discussion" going on about which place, there or St. Augustine, was actually the first settlement in the US. LOL
We'll have to try the Breezeway next time we meet up with our friends from Port Charlotte, we try and meet up midway between our homes.

Thank you, Sherri! We loved St. Augustine too! : + ) Our house is 121 years old but it is far from being a tourist attraction! LOL!

Alice I do love Beaufort, SC, we went to a Military graduation for a young man we know about five years ago, we decided to make a long weekend out it, We drove all around looking at the charming houses, lots of history there, even went and checked out the state park there, and lighthouse.

Tiffany, wow 121 years old, that is something, bet your garden is lovely too. I have driven though AL many times, stopping for eating and gas breaks, but never have really stayed any length of time, I do remember in June it was busting with flowering trees, pretty drive.

You would think over that much time somebody would have cultivated something but there was no garden there when I moved to that house in 2014.

Gosh Sherri, you drove right past our neighborhood. Dataw Island is about a 1/3 of the way out to Hunting Island State Park. Beaufort County has no real mainland, it is just a series of smaller sea islands.

Tiffany, people used to have was was called a swept garden or yard. There was not one thing planted, it was easier to see the snakes that way, and it really was swept every morning to clean up any leaves twigs, etc. A man we knew, he is probably in his mid 80's now, told me sweeping the yard was his chore as a child.

purpleinopp said:You would think over that much time somebody would have cultivated something but there was no garden there when I moved to that house in 2014.

Well maybe you need to change that.

Alice, my husband's mother has told us she used to be told to sweep the yard. She just turned 80. Grass was considered ugly and undesirable.

There is info about lawn-sweeping in one of the books I purchased (I'm not saying how long ago). I think it's the Virginia Scott Jenkins book, "The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession."

Anyone who wonders, "Why is there grass everywhere?" or "What did people do before lawn mowers?" would likely enjoy reading that book.

Sherri, I have been, as much as possible! The areas I've started in the sun are doing well, but the shady areas, ugh! Just a thicket of baby trees at the moment. It's time to give up on those and do more in the sun. I get a lot more mosquito bites in the shady areas anyway.

Any other tropical landscape pics are welcome. If you live in tropical places, have greenhouses, are knocking yourselves out in a temperate zone with tons of "as annuals," went somewhere pretty, etc... If it keeps raining regularly, I might have enough Coleus that are tall enough to look like something. They're going to have to grow faster than the Callisia repens though, sheesh. I can't pull that stuff out as fast as it grows on top of other plants.