Palma Sola Botanical Park — Attraction in Florida

An absolute hidden gem. We're new to the area, having visited for decades but recently moved. Trying to check out off-the-beaten-path places locals know about, we ran across this place. It was a bit difficult to locate; our GPS kept insisting it was part of Robinson Preserve. It's not - if you drive along 17th Ave NW there's a sign you can almost miss as you near the corner of 99 Street NW; you can also enter from 99th but there's no sign we could see. By the time we arrived, we just had time to wander through the incredible fruit tree area - we had no idea there were so many native fruit trees here, sadly so because people don't seem to plant them any more! There were informative signs throughout, and we were told picking was allowed. (Though we then watched a couple with a baby carriage that didn't hold a baby, literally grabbing every single ripe fruit in the place and stuffing it into the carriage. It made us long for some sort of oversight, even a volunteer, to place a limit, because by the time we got to the one tree we wanted fruit from, the fruit had all been taken!) We walked around the pond, or lake, with our dog, checked out the gazebo (beautiful) and eating areas (well maintained, indoor seating, great for a group party), stopped at the combination gift shop/information house, and all in all thought it was a great experience. The variety of flowers is likewise immense, with well-kept signs explaining what each one is. We had a question about a particular bush, and one of the staff took a good ten minutes to tell us where it came from originally, how it grew, how to grow it ourselves. Really,...

We got married here in 2016 and it was so, so beautiful. Ina was incredibly helpful. We were going to go with another venue but a caterer who had done an event at Palma Sola recommended it to us and I'm so glad they did. It was actually slightly cheaper and we had more time to bring things over (had the whole day to ourselves starting around 7am) whereas a lot of venues will only let you book for something like 8 hours. The grounds are magnificent and there's many great spots for photos. Our guests loved walking around and everything was just gorgeous. Couple of things to point out: If you're decorating, you can't attach anything directly to the walls and you have to either find a way to stand it up or attach it to flimsy hooks already installed the walls. Not great, but we found workarounds and it was still lovely! There is just one building you can use for a reception and it's not really big enough for large weddings, unless you decide to seat everyone outside, or half inside/outside by using the veranda). We had about 55 guests and seated them inside the main building and used the veranda for dancing and it was perfect but probably would not comfortably accomodate more than 60 people. So, if you're looking for an affordable place for a small-medium wedding, Palma...

I really liked this park. The gardener we spoke with nice and showed us Jack fruit and Star fruit tree that I would never have realized was a fruit tree. I loved seeing the plumerias! However my 2 star has to do with the butterfly garden. Monarchs are in endangered so having milkweed is essential to their survival but that milkweed need to be pesticide free. My understanding is that those may have been donated which is really kind but it’s not going to help the butterflies if the caterpillars die from ingesting poison. How to tell pesticide has been used is there aren’t any other insects on the plant aphids, milkweed bugs or caterpillars. You can see there have been caterpillars or milkweed bugs by a few bites in several leaves but now none. Which could have been eaten by lizards, frogs or etc… but the lack of aphids is the true showing that those plants are bad. Please cut them down!Let them come back in the spring. After good amounts of watering the plants will good next year for the monarchs but for now your just...