The First Annual Food Fest and Member Give Back Day, on Saturday, April 28th, was a huge success!

We had 573 visitors, sold 19 memberships and collected several large bins of food for St. Matthew's House.

The food trucks were a hit, and the live musical performance by The Wholetones was amazing. Also, the fruit display prepared by Garden Staff Member, Taylor Walker,  was awesome!

The Garden would like to extend a warm thank you to everyone who participated and helped make this day a success.

 See you next year!

On Saturday, April 7th the Garden hosted its annual Egg Hunt which was a huge success!

Between 9am-12:30pm we had 1,178 visitors came out to the Smith Children's Garden to celebrate the spring holiday weekend.

If you were not able to attend here's what you missed...

Recently, amidst the hectic approach to our Annual Flower Show, Dr. George Wilder delivered an  overview of a category of plants that people don't frequently include in arrangements or showings, but which are remarkable and beautiful in their own way - Weeds.

Dr. Wilder collects weeds from all over but has found some remarkable ones right here in the Garden!

Read on to learn more about his collections of weeds from the Garden and his thoughts ons some of his more interesting and rare finds...

In February 2012, we put the finishing touches on the Kristin Foster Succulent Garden. The newest addition to the Naples Botanical Garden features succulent plants from around the world.

So what do we mean by "succulent?"

A succulent, by definition, is any plant that has a specialized growth for storing or conserving water. In general, these are plants adapted for growing in arid climates or arid-like conditions, like the crevises of rocks with little to no soil or even a part of your garden that does't get watered.

Succulent plants often have some combination of spines, thick fleshy leaves or swollen trunks. These adaptations help them live through harsh climates and conditions with little to no rain fall. 

One of the most frequent questions we are asked is "What's Blooming?"

We wanted to answer this question in a totally new way for our audience, so we tracked down our Horticulture Director, Brian Galligan, and asked him take us through a tour of what's currently in bloom.

As it turns out, we have LOADS of things in bloom all the time. Of course we knew this, but putting it in a video was a totally different story. We would have two hour videos each week if we tried to publish everything we shot.

Thus, the launch of our Plant Talk & Walk videos! Since we can't fit in everything that is blooming, we wanted provide a "highlight tour" through the Garden.

The first video we have includes some of the incredible blooming trees around our property, starting right in our parking lots.

Dr. George Wilder is a Botanist, Professor and our Herbarium Curator here at the Garden. We are extremely lucky to have him, especially since he shares his knowledge during our bimonthly staff meetings with his amazing and sometimes humorous presentations. We thought it was time to share these reports with our readers. Enjoy!

On Friday, February 17th, the Garden hosted the Inaugural Garden Party to celebrate the opening of the two-month ZimSculpt exhibition.

The evening began with a dramatic entrance where guests were greeted by African drummers. Following this was a stroll through the Garden where guests enjoyed the sculptures placed throughout the Asian,  Florida and Brazilian gardens, just to name a few. During there evening walk, guests viewed an on-site carving demonstration by Patrick Sephani while enjoying cocktails and hors' d’oeuvres.

The ZimSculpt stone sculpture exhibit is making a big impression on our visitors since its debut at our First Annual Garden Party on Friday, February 17, 2011.

The exhibit features more than 100 stone carvings arranged throughout the cultivated gardens. Not only are the stone sculptures wonderful to look at, but also serve to educate visitors on the cultural heritage of Zimbabwe. Themes of family, nature and spirituality clearly inspire the creativity of these magnificent stone carvings.

We have been receiving a number of calls and emails about the photos that were taken during our Night Lights 2011 Celebration by Luminaire Foto.

You may remember picking up some prop pair of glasses or faux mustache and posing for a shot or two in the Lea Asian Garden during our holiday season event. Did you ever check out the pictures and see how they came out?

Many beautiful migratory birds are still with us in Southwest Florida, but the January Second Saturday Migration Celebration has flown away to make room for another migration -- the Gnomes, who will be returning to the Children’s Garden February 11, 2012!