Candid Florida

Fairchild Gardens

This Friday is National Public Gardens Day, and no better time to take a stroll – or better yet, take your mother for a stroll – at your favorite public garden. With our temperate and tropical climates, Florida is blessed with some of the most colorful and beautiful gardens in the United States.

Better Homes & Gardens is a sponsor of the event and is providing two free tickets for the following Florida gardens if you go to their website and claim them. The gardens include:

Bok Tower Gardens, Lake Wales
Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai, Key Largo
Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Coral Gables
Heathcote Botanical Gardens, Fort Pierce
John C. Gifford Arboretum, Coral Gables
Lakes Park Botanical Garden, Fort Myers
Milton Gardens of NW Florida, Milton

See slide shows from gardens throughout Florida at Botanical Florida
Find your way to Florida’s Gardens with my iPhone app!

Black Hammock Fish Camp

One of the first genuine Florida adventures I was introduced to upon arriving back as a resident after a long absence was the crazy quilt of outdoors and dining that is Black Hammock Fish Camp, not far from Orlando along Lake Jesup in Oviedo.

The restaurant is down-home and tasty, featuring farm grown alligator and seafood. At the time I visited, you had to slip and slide down a sand road, much like driving in snow, to get there. The road’s since been paved but rambles through old orange groves in a blissfully agricultural district of Seminole County.

Beyond the restaurant, it’s a complex of entertainment and outdoors: a marina and boat ramp, waterfront tiki bar and shop full of trinkets and Ts, an alligator pit, and airboat rides on Lake Jesup. Now I’ve experienced for a fact that Lake Jesup is full of alligators. So if you’re hankering to see some, either hatchlings in a tank, gator tail on your plate, or the big guys in the lake, this is the place to be.

Black Hammock Fish Camp
2356 Black Hammock Fish Camp Road
Oviedo, FL 32765
407-365-1244

Moon shot at Dicerandra Scrub

Growing up in the Space Age, it’s always been a joy to stop in Titusville and admire the view across the Indian River Lagoon of the hustle and bustle of Kennedy Space Center.

It saddens me that the wind-down of the Space Shuttle program will have a ripple effect on local businesses, such as the Clarion Inn at the end of SR 50 that just recently closed. But there will always be the moon.

Space View Park is an excellent place to see the starry skies over the Indian River Lagoon, but I lucked into this daylight shot in Titusville at Dicerandra Scrub Preserve, no tripod, with my Nikon D-80. Perhaps the stars were in alignment?

Heading out to sea at Jupiter

In honor of Father’s Day – and to encourage Floridians and visitors to hit the beaches – Governor Charlie Crist has proclaimed this weekend – June 19-20, Father’s Day weekend – as a “free saltwater fishing weekend” for all. No licenses required, but state fishing regulations still apply.

Learn more about fishing for free in Florida this weekend!

At Bethedsa-by-the-Sea, worship is not held just in hallowed halls but in the grace of the garden. Surrounding this historic Palm Beach church are colorful plantings of unusual tropical plants like the big leafed sea grape. Behind, the lively Cluett Memorial Garden invites a stroll, where the fishes – colorful koi – will follow you until you break bread with them. Find a moment of serenity here.

Florida’s largest live oak is just south of the tiny town of LaCrosse in rural north Alachua County. Known as the Cellon Oak, it’s so expansive that the cover of “Big Trees in Florida” shows 30-some-odd people linking hands to approximate the width of the tree’s crown. It’ll help you put yourself in perspective!