Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg, FL

I have wanted to visit Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg for a few years now and we just have not made it here until now.  We love visiting botanical gardens in general and they give me a chance to take pretty pictures.  So I was thrilled when Nathan picked this as one of his places to visit for his pre-birthday party day.

Sunken Gardens is St. Petersburg's oldest living museum.  It is 100 years old, which means some of the plants here are amongst the oldest in the area.  The land was originally owned by a gentleman who was a plumber by trade but he loved to garden.  His gardens were so beautiful, people paid a nickle to visit them.  His family kept up this tradition for three generations and in 1999 the city bought the land to preserve it and further his vision.  It has been a community effort to maintain this project and there is now a children's museum alongside the gardens.

 

 It was as lovely as we had hoped it would be.  There were beautiful gardens of course.  According to their literature, there are over 50,000 tropical plants and flowers. 

 There were some neat animals as a bonus, both in the water and land.  There were even some vibrant tropical birds.

There were lots of water features and benches to sit and rest on also.  Just a nice, peaceful place overall.  They even offer hooping classes here!

I hope we can visit this neat place again sometime!  Maybe I will have to join in for a hooping class or two some morning.  I will provide entertainment for the creatures watching if nothing else!  I can feel this guy's enthusiasm in that line of thinking.  He just radiates excitement, right?

Living the life in tropical Florida.