Sunken Gardens
Sunken Gardens: a place of winding, interconnected stone paths between huge palms and trickling artificial brooks. They have ferns, cycads, oaks, trumpet flowers, bamboo, bottle palms, orchids, and bromeliads. They have many kinds of flowers, berries, and all kinds of strange, unidentifiable things. There was even a rainbow eucalyptus tree. They do a good job of packing a lot of plants into a small area and this is a very big garden. Some of the trees and palms are quite big and it is a constant struggle between looking at the flowers at ground level and seeing some of the normally hidden sights high above.
The garden began when George Turner bought the land in 1903 and promptly drained the small lake there to make room for it. To this day, some parts of the garden are fifteen feet below street level. He filled it with flowers and exotic fruits. People loved it. In the 1920s he began charging people to stroll through. In 1999 the city of Saint Petersburg bought the place. They even keep a few animals there, including different kinds of turtles, koi, flamingos, parrots, macaws, and kookaburras. The parrots are kept in cages. 1825 4th Street North, Saint Petersburg, Florida Website |
Written by Daniel Noe