Welcome back, lets continue our tour.


Over there you can see one of the bridges that cross the stream. Let's follow this path.


As you will notice that shade dominates this garden. But as we follow the path we come into a drier section of the garden. In spring the Azalea bloom and in winter you can find the flowers of the Camellias. But other than that there are only a few beds of plants. The main focus of this are seems to be the live oaks.
There is a large Stagehorn Fern hanging in this one just around the corner. There are several in the gardens they where damaged by the freezes last winter but are recovering nicely



Over to our left is a small herb garden, it is new and they are still working out what will grow in this area. That path continues into one of the nature trails that wander over the park.

To our left is a group of Hibiscus moscheutos and again there is a fence to keep out the deer. Right beyond that is a who boarder of Schefflera arboricola

Ahead are some of the Live Oaks, do you notice the down tree, that has been there many years. It is strange to see a died tree but it does make a very interesting garden feature.

Up ahead is one of the old mighty oaks that this garden was named for. And here is another with 2 of my gardening fiends...I mean friends.



There is a rebellion going on in my picture files, they are fighting on who will be next. So we will take a break, and I will continue this tour tomorrow, after I get them back in order

Welcome back. Let's continue
We will finish up with pictures of some of the flowers that are blooming right now, a few of the critters that you might see, some views of the waters and garden, and a quick trip to the beach part of the Garden park.
Let's start with the flowers. Sorry I do not know the names of most of these, many of these are in the butterfly garden area






There are some many wonderful views of the gardens I wish to share with you





This garden is in the middle of a natural habit so you will see many birds,bug and other critters.
I have been coming to this garden for many, many years. I have only seen snakes 3 times and they have been the harmless
kind, so please do not be put off by my pictures of the 2 beauties down below
In the stream you can some time see frogs or as right now the tadpoles, there are also a number of very large Koi.



The black snake is a Southern Black Racer, I have one living in my yard, great snake to help keep the rodent population down
The striped one is possible a light color form of the Southern Banded Water Snake, but I have not been able to find a picture of it
that matches this ones color



The last critter is this strange bug that I found will waiting for my friends at the building at the beginning of the gardens, have not found anyone to ID him yet.



If you are down here on the second Saturday of a month there is a wonderful plant sale, the money goes to help upgrade the gardens.


The next post will show you some pictures of the beach side of the park and some of the plants that are native to the shore.

Now to the Beach, this are was cleared of all plants a couple of years ago to get rid of all the non native plants and is now returning to a native Florida coastal habitat .


The low palm like plants are Saw Palmetto, and take a word from the wish never go walking among them. First there is a reason they have the name of Saw, as the edges of the leaves will cut you up. AND second rattlesnakes love this kind of habitat!!!!



Keep a sharp look out and you may see some of the Right whales,


Now sometimes you will find something in your pictures that you did not see the first time. I was taking this picture of the rocks that are found along this stretch of beach and they are a natural out crop. But I miss seeing at the time some thing interesting and important.
See the double tracks in the sand that look like 2 rows of dashes. Notice how it changes direction when it comes to a small rock. I believe that this is the track of a sea turtle who had come in to lay eggs. The vehicle tracks also enforce this as no vehicles except park ones are allowed on this beach area and there is a nightly patrol for sea turtles nesting.



Now one last picture of our beach for those of you who are inland.

I hope that all of you enjoyed my tour of Washington Oaks State Garden.

Please feel free to add your own local Public gardens to our tours, they can be simple as a few pictures and descriptions or as overly words as mine.
We big, small or tiny gardens would love to see them all.

Thank you