GAINESVILLE – Here’s a clue: Turning onto a long winding road to get to your final destination it usually means you are headed for a totally different world.
This clue works well for Kanapaha Botanical Gardens in Gainesville. Turning off busy State Road 24 at the Kanapaha sign, you wind along a long paved road. By the time you finally reach the Gardens’ parking area, you’ve gone far enough to leave city stress behind and enter a peaceful botanical interlude.
A large, light-filled building called the Summer House serves as an entrance area, gift shop and information center. But you won’t be in a hurry to get there. The walkway leading up to the Summer House is a showcase for plants and water features. For those who like to take notes, this is the place to begin writing down the names of plants you might like in your yard.
It is here along the walkway that you get a small sampling of the bamboos that help make Kanapaha famous. Altogether Kanapaha has 15 distinct gardens. Their Bamboo Garden is the state’s largest collection of bamboo species.
Near the front entrance is a clump of Buddha’s Belly Bamboo, clearly impressive, rising tall above the Summer House roofline. Budd
ha’s Belly is a giant bamboo that grows to 55 feet tall and has three-inch thick canes. When a breeze rustles through the thick crowns it sounds like muted music.
After paying admission, open the map and decide which way to go. Kanapaha has paths going both left and right past the different gardens, each one set apart in their own clump. Walkways take you to all of them.
To the left of the Summer House your walk begins with the Azalea/Camellia Garden followed by the Water Gardens, the Rose Garden, Crinum Garden, Butterfly Garden and Arboretum. Most of the paths loop back on themselves so you can meander leisurely and see the sights coming and going.
Also in this area is a new project under construction called the Alexander Bowen Memorial Children’s Garden. Low walls with mosaics inserted run n
ext to walkways in wavy patterns. A drawing shows that there will be a maze in the future.
The Water Gardens were built in 1994 as a demonstration project for reclaimed water use (from Gainesville Regional Utilities). The waterfalls and stream clearly show that what goes around once can come around again in a beautiful form. On a recent visit we saw turtles sunning themselves, an anhinga diving for fish and lily pads sprouting new growth.
To the right of the Summer House you wind through the Vinery, Herb Garden, Bamboo Garden, Woodland Garden, Spring Flower Garden, Hummingbird Garden, Rock Garden, Palm Hammock and Cycad Garden. There is even a small overlook of Lake Kanapaha.
On our recent visit we paused at the Vinery to admire the thick growth over the arbors providing shade. Nothing was in bloom at the moment. The Vinery was actually looking quite brown that day, the result of several recent frosts.
Everything changes with the seasons. This is the kind of place you’ll want to visit at different times of the year to capture the changing face of beauty and diversity.
Botanical gardens are meant to be beautiful by design. Kanapaha is certainly that and more, a place of repose where you easily forget the busy world you left behind at that last turn onto the winding road.
If You Go
What: Kanapaha Botanical Gardens
Where: 4700 SW 58th Drive, Gainesville, FL 32608. Entrance on SW Archer Road (State Road 24) one mile west of Interstate 75
Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 9-5. Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to dusk. Closed Thursday
Contact: (352) 372-4981. Web site: www.kanapaha.org
Admission: $5 adults. $3 children 6-13. Children under the age of six admitted free when accompanied by parent
Upcoming: March 24 & 25, 17th annual Spring Garden Festival, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Free shuttle bus service from Kanapaha Park & Kanapaha Middle School, both on Tower Road (SW 75th St.)
Lucy Beebe Tobias is a freelance writer, photographer and artist living in Ocala.This article first appeared in the Observer, March 2007