Take close-up look at botanical gems on Maclay Tour of Gardens

After Hurricane Andrew thoroughly laid waste to my hometown of Homestead some 30+ years ago, I would make frequent visits to my parent’s house as they worked to recover from the surrounding devastation.

It was during these regular visits for two years that I began to play a little game with myself as I entered town, each time asking, “If I didn’t know there had been a hurricane (like a tourist driving through town headed to the Florida Keys, for instance), would I be able to tell there had been one?”

It was over the course of those two years that I became increasingly aware of the recuperative power of nature. My dad’s five-acre avocado grove, in which every tree had been leveled, was producing fruit. The flattened piney woods were alive with growth and the Banyan trees that had provided shade on one of the main streets in town before the storm had amazingly burst forth from their sawed-off stumps to offer shade once again.

I thought back to my experience as a result of those visits this past January as I made my initial outings to the Tallahassee-area landscapes I was hoping to have on this year’s Maclay Tour of Gardens. The recent intense December freeze – the worst in years – had left most gardens and landscapes looking (as one garden owner told me) like they had all been sprayed with an herbicide.

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Many of those potential Tour of Garden hosts saw little hope for the recovery of their treasured gardens by mid-May… fully understandable in light of their early winter appearance.

But ah, “the recuperative power of nature,” or as I heard a narrator on a PBS show say the other night, “Nature, if left alone, will heal itself.”

Which brings us to the 28th Maclay Tour of Gardens, a spring tradition offering an opportunity to tour some of Tallahassee’s finest landscapes and offering a testimony to hope as well. If nature can spring forth from adversity, maybe there’s a lesson there for all of us.

This year’s Maclay Tour of Gardens – an event of the Friends of Maclay Gardens, a nonprofit Citizens Support Organization that has assisted Maclay Gardens State Park in meeting critical needs for the past 31 years – will take place from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, May 19 and 20.

This year’s self-guided Tour of Gardens will highlight seven diverse and eye-catching residential landscapes which have left the freeze behind. All of these landscapes are within the immediate Tallahassee area. Tour attendees will be treated to a continental-style breakfast at Maclay Gardens State Park beginning at 8:30, and Tour booklets detailing the locations and descriptions of the seven selected gardens will be distributed at that time.

Diversity is once again the name of the game in this year’s Tour landscapes. There are two native plant landscapes, both of which have sprung forth from formerly more traditional settings.

There are two large, eye-popping, flower-laden botanical gems that testify to nature’s abundance when given a boost by the commitment of their owners to good landscape and wildlife-friendly practices, including right plant/right place, weed control through organic mulching and minimal use of turfgrass, for example.

Finally, the Tour features three small-lot masterpieces, set in two of Tallahassee’s oldest neighborhoods, that abound with treasures.

As alluded to earlier, the gardens selected for the Tour, along with the garden owners and docents who host them (many of whom are Leon County Master Gardener Volunteers), will provide educational experiences that offer the means to overcome obstacles in our own winter-ravaged gardens. The recuperative power of nature, with a boost from us, can bring forth an abundance of healing.

Maclay Tour of Gardens one-day tickets ($30-$35) are available on the Friends of Maclay Gardens website, friendsofmaclaygardens.org. For more information, call Gary Griffin, Maclay Tour of Gardens Chairperson, at 850-228-1129.

Gary Griffin is a Board Member of the Friends of Maclay Gardens, Chairperson for the 2023 Maclay Tour of Gardens, and a Master Gardener Volunteer with UF/IFAS Leon County Extension, an Equal Opportunity Institution. For gardening questions, email AskAMasterGardener@ifas.ufl.edu.

If you go

What: Maclay Tour of Gardens

When: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. May 19-20

Where: Meet at Maclay Gardens State Park, 3945 Thomasville Road

Details: friendsofmaclaygardens.org

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Get a closeup look at flowering gems on Maclay Tour of Gardens