Joy & Gordon Patterson Botanical Garden — Attraction in Melbourne

This is also called the Joy & Gordon Patterson Botanical Garden. It is located on the campus of the Florida Institute of Technology. You can park in the visitors spaces and admission is free.

Twelve thousand years ago, this area was a watering hole for migrating mammoths and mastodons. The Melbourne Mammoth which is currently displayed in Amherst's Beneski Museum of Natural History, was discovered along the Crane tributaries in the 1920s. Fossils including mastodon teeth continue to be found here today.

V.C. Brownlie who previously owned the land donated 40 acres to the University of Melbourne for educational purposes. When the University no longer had use for it, Mrs. Virginia Wood, Chairman of the University of Melbourne was instrumental in getting the land donated it to FIT after they pledged to maintain the natural hammock on the property and to not uproot any trees unnecessarily. In honor of their contributions, "Brownlie" and "Wood" halls were named in honor of the two women.

In the late 1950's founding university president Jerome Keuper who was a physicist at Cape Canaveral, set aside 15 acres for the garden while the campus was being built. Keuper grew over 200 varieties of Palms from all over the world along with his friend and founder of the Palm Society, Dent Smith. In recognition for Smith's contributions, a trail through the hammock garden was named the Dent Smith Trail in his honor. In 1972 the Board of Trustees of FIT formerly dedicated the botanical garden.

The students nicknamed the garden the Jungle and it is kept as natural as possible to this day. The garden has streams which are tributaries of Crane Creek and small bridges cross over the water. There is also picnic benches, a gazebo, a bamboo garden, cycad garden, butterfly garden, fountain, and a turtle pond. Benches in the garden are embossed with quotes from inspirational people such as philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and local author Zora Neale Hurston.

At the beginning of the trail is Melbourne's oldest schoolhouse which dates to 1883. The building was the working schoolhouse for the children of early settlers and is one of Brevard's oldest still existing structures. The "Little Red Schoolhouse" was moved to the gardens in 1970.

In 2019, Joy and Gordon Patterson made a large donation to the garden and it was named in their honor. Both Patterson's teach at the School of Arts and Communication of F.I.T. and they felt a special connection to the botanical garden.

I always love discovering a new garden and this one even has a historic building. It is so refreshing to the soul to get out in nature and enjoy the clean air and beautiful plants. The fact that this all free makes it even better.

The garden is open daily from dawn to dusk. There are both paved and unpaved sections. Anyone can take take a self guided tour. If you contact the college you can arrange for a 45 minute guided tour. This tropical paradise has so much history and beauty. It is well worth it to visit this natural treasure if you are in the...

Melbourne, Florida’s very first school. The Little Red Schoolhouse is located in The Botanical Gardens on The Florida Tech Campus.

This building was erected in 1883 by John Goode, an early settler, he built the school about 800 yards south of his home, known then as Fountain Heights, located on The Indian River. The Schoolhouse served both white and black students. The fist two teachers were Maude Goode and May Valentine.

The school was painted red from the very beginning and had a hand operated pump which stood outside the door, there were no desk inside the schoolhouse, only benches. The students wrote on slats. Each school term was five to six month in the summer...

In a city of concrete urban sprawl, I loved walking through these dense jungle woods back in the nineties when I was attending the exorbitantly priced FIT. There was something Zen-magical about this lonely place and it seemed to erase my stress as I passed through the thicket and palm reeds. I explored every square inch of this special space.

I have so many happy memories sitting silently by the slowly meandering stream and quieting my mind as the jungle surrounding me seemed to rustle softly, oxygenate the air and made me feel so peacefully alive.

I'm grateful it still exists despite the fact they carved some of it up in the last decade to put up some spec formula multi...