Downtown Orlando Cottage and Fern Creek

Just one example of the lush vegetation growing in Azalea Park with a view of what I call the Brontasaurus Oak.

A view of the gorgeous Central Ave. Bridge from park level.

Looking south from under the Central Ave. Bridge, paradise awaits just on the other side.

Just north of the Central Ave. Bridge.

Dickson Azalea Park contains one of the most lush areas of flora growing beside fern creek, and a walking trail with bridges like this one that lets you criss-cross it several times. Running from Robinson Street down to the resovoir in the Greenwood Cemetary and 1/4 mile west of Bumby Ave. the park stretches about two miles from north to south.

While making sure I had the right angle for this shot down the creek, did I miss a giant alligator just in front of me?

Another shot of the brontasauras tree. It seems it has stretched it's way horizontal and then vertical over the years trying to get more sunlight.

Hanging bridge across Fern Creek in Azalea Park.

Beautiful waterfall on the north end of the park.

View from one of the park's many bridges.

The entrance to a part of Azalea Park as seen from Central Ave. The trail on the left leads into the lush woods and goes along Fern Creek.

Carl T. Langford park. Next to Fern Creek are large clearings like this one.

A few blocks west of the cottage, Jefferson Street runs into Dickson's Azalea Park. It is built along a little stream called Fern Creek that flows south into the reservoir and wetlands that lie

just outside Greenwood Cemetery, the city's oldest. Here are a few shots of this little oasis. It looks more like something you think of in North Carolina than downtown Orlando, but I think one of the fun things about this blog is to dispel some of the misconceptions that people have of what Florida is really like. It is as layered and complicated as a zone that transitions from temperate to tropic, from mainland to island, should be.

Along the elevated board walk in Carl T. Langford park is this covered stage area. Fern Creek on the left hand side and plenty of covered pick-nic areas on the right side.Giant Elephant Ear, about 6ft.X4ft.

Orlando Remodel, Windermere Water Feature and Busy Week

This is going to continue to be one heck of a week. I took Mike and David to the airport early Sunday Morning so they can attend a one week family reunion on the shores of Lake Michigan. The water feature is structurally complete but my trip to south Florida is on hold until I hear from a couple of more people on plant orders. The cost in time and gas is the same so the more plants I can get, the better the return. Also want to pick up some crotons, ti-plants, eugenias and a couple orchids for the garden cottage. Work has progressed on it, we've only been in a week and we have done quite a lot.
In the middle of the scrapping and wood putty job.

Sanding after the wood putty gets rid of the divets in the wood.

Sunday I scraped, sanded, filled and sanded some more the door surround which bore the scars of multiple Christmas decorations and an old screen door. I used Behr's ultra white exterior "prime and paint all in one" for the trim. It saves having to use a runny, messy primer and the fresh white looks perfect with almost everything. It costs about $35 per gallon but it's well worth it. And using one white for just about everything means we don't have to worry about matching for touch ups later.
I chose to keep the yellow body color but went for something a bit richer. I had a Ralph Lauren color, "Golden Yellow" made up at the local Benjamin Moore dealer, Watkins Paint on Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando. With the help of the manager, Ryan, I also chose what he said was as close as the had to a Charleston green as possible, "Black Forrest Green" for the porch floor. The color named for the classic southern city became popular after the Civil War. Impoverished gentility longed for color, but it tended to be too expensive. They discovered that by adding a little yellow to black paint (with a slight blue bias), they could achieve a rich, dark green. Hence the birth of one of the classic Southern color schemes- dark green with crisp white. To top it all off we'll paint the porch ceiling a very pale blue. Haven't picked the color yet, but again this choice of a sky blue on a porch ceiling is classic southern palette choice. So there you have it- Ultra white trim, "Golden Yellow Body," "Black Forrest Green" floor, Sky Blue ceiling. The porch will be done by Saturday. Oh yes, the wicker is all being sprayed flat black.

The Golden Yellow on the bottom vs. the paler existing yellow.

Lunch Break at the Garden Cottage. Notice the line between the two yellows.

Lake Eola is the Green Heart of Orlando

Full view of Lake Eola Park, fountain and ducks

Downtown Orlando stretches from Lake Ivanhoe on the north to Lake Lucerne on the south. Right in the middle is Lake Eola Park. It's about forty five acres more or less evenly split between lake and land. The park is at the core of much of downtown's activity and has been for over a hundred years. A monument on the east side says it was placed at the site where Orlando Rees, the city's namesake was killed by Seminole Indians in 1837.

Southside of Lade Eola Park


As a native of Orlando, my memories of the park go back to my grandparents taking my sister and I down when we were barely able to walk or talk and feeding the ducks and swans. I repeated the ritual with my godson David when he was not much older. Some things are always fun.

The Sunday Farmer's Market at Lake Eola is always a blast



From the ages of six to nine I attended art school in a two story Victorian house at the southeast corner of the park. Once a year the school sponsored a contest where people from all over would come for a day to paint in the park. Likewise there was a fishing competition and one year when I couldn't have been older than five, I won!

Painting from SW side of Lake Eola featuring the main attraction, the fabulous center fountain

This painting which is also visible on my website, floridagardengallery.com, was painted summer 2008. I've now been painting the park for fifty years. I still enjoy looking at it.

A postcard from 1914 of the Sperry Fountain. The same fountain my above painting was created after.

The wonders of the park are too numerous to describe. One is no longer there, having lasted about fifty years and ending in the late seventies. It was the sweet pea wall, a fabulous multi tiered annual bed that boasted as many as seven tiers ending in a ten foot trellis of sweet peas that smelled as beautifully as they looked. For two summers in college, I was the assistant to the city of Orlando landscape architect. One of my jobs was to visit all of the parks and draw the annual beds so that he could twice a year plot the layout of the season's annuals. The most elaborate was the sweet pea bed. We were told that Kodak reported it was one of the ten most frequently photographed spots in the country.

Ariel view of 1930's Orlando and the Lake Eola bandstand.

One of the water features of Lake Eola Park include this pond with a magnificent bronze sculpture and bridge with lovely scenic view of downtown Orlando in the background