South Florida Events | Botanical Visions Landscape Architecture

Landscape Makeover Workshop!

January 22, 2013 By Jennifer Mennuti Leave a Comment

Garden room meditation room botanical visions

Extend your living space- add an Outdoor Room!

There’s something magical about a makeover where you can witness a huge improvement in a short time frame. The transformation of something from blah to spectacular starts with inspiration and ideas and ends with an enormous feeling of accomplishment and pride.

Circular driveway island Botanical Visions

Add color and interest to a driveway island!

If you have a space in your yard that is begging for a new purpose or look or just isn’t being used to its full potential, this event is for you! Pamela Crawford will be hosting this free workshop and will be supplying the inspiration and ideas for your garden on February 24th at the Wellington Community Center at 12165 Forest Hill Blvd. in Wellington at 1:00pm.

Add a path & enjoy your side yard!

All you have to do is show up and bring some printed photos of an area of your yard that you want to beautify and she will spend five minutes providing ideas as conceptual sketches which you can bring home. If you lack the time or ability to put the ideas into action, then Botanical Visions is happy to help. Our professional team will take her ideas and install them using top quality materials so you can get outside more and enjoy your garden! For more information on the workshop, you can call Pamela at 561-371-2719.

Pamela Crawford is an award-winning writer and designer and author of ten gardening books, four of which are specific to South Florida. Her work has been featured on the cover of Better Homes & Gardens publications as well as in numerous editions of Southern Living, HGTV Magazine, Fine Gardening, Country Gardens, Country Almanac, Small Gardens, and over 2500 newspapers. As an expert in her field, she has appeared on GardenSmart TV, the Fine Living Network, gardenloverstv.com, and numerous local television shows. She has a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture from Florida International University and is joining the Botanical Visions team!

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Lake Worth Street Painting Festival

January 14, 2013 By Jennifer Mennuti Leave a Comment

South Florida is home to World’s Largest Street Painting Festival! Every year, the streets of downtown Lake Worth come alive with art by more than 600 amateur and professional artists of all ages and skill levels as the pavement gets coated in chalk masterpieces until it rains. The event takes place February 23rd and 24th on Lake and Lucerne Avenues, between Dixie Highway and Federal Highway and will also feature live music, street performers and food. This is the 19th year that Lake Worth has hosted the event and it has been gaining popularity every year. The event officially starts on Saturday at 10:00am but if you can’t wait that long, you can join the pre-party in downtown Lake Worth the night before to enjoy a “Taste of Lake Worth” Block Party with food, drinks, music and other activities.

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Get Schooled on Native Plants for FREE!

October 2, 2012 By Jennifer Mennuti Leave a Comment

Bill Reeve, President and owner of Botanical Visions, will be giving a presentation on using Florida native plants on Wednesday, October 10 at 7:00pm at the Broward Chapter meeting of the Florida Native Plant Society. The meeting will be held at Secret Woods Nature Center on State Road 84 in Ft. Lauderdale. These meetings are held monthly and are a great place to meet fellow gardeners who are experts in Florida native plants as well as people who are new to using natives and are looking to learn more. They have a free give away table and a raffle as well as light refreshments. The plant auction held at the end of the meeting is a great opportunity to bring home a new plant for very little money.

The group will meet again on Saturday, October 20 for a field trip at Sandy Ridge Sanctuary in Coral Springs. There will be a two hour guided tour through the 38 acre nature preserve to look for wildlife and native plants. Some of the wildlife spotted in this ecosystem include foxes, gopher tortoises, ducks, osprey, and many other birds.

My favorite benefit of incorporating Florida native plants in a landscape is the increased wildlife that happens almost immediately. Butterflies, birds and many fascinating pollinators find their way to the flowers and add a whole new dimension of interest and activity to the garden. You will also notice a reduced need for water and pesticides. Lower maintenance means a healthier planet and more time to relax and enjoy life.

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Spend Some Time With the Aroid Family!

August 29, 2012 By Jennifer Mennuti Leave a Comment

If you haven’t met the Aroids, now is the perfect time! Step away from your own dysfunctional family and go to Miami to meet this one! The Aroid Family has a big reunion every year at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and you’re invited to the festivities on Saturday and Sunday, September 15 & 16 from 9:30am-4:30pm. The event is presented by the International Aroid Society and the Aroid plants and society members will be on display and for sale (well, the human members aren’t for sale, just the plants). I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some serious Aroid collectors in my time and these people mean business and they’re on to something. These plants are gorgeous, striking, fascinating and unique and have freakish tendencies which other plant families lack. They grow up trees, they hang from trees, they scale walls, they can smell horrible, they can grow huge or be really tiny- the varieties are endless. Many of them have giant leaves which you can cut and place in big glass vases in your home and they last for months. The Monstera or Swiss Cheese Plant even produces an edible fruit. You may have read about Fairchild’s “Mr. Stinky” in the newspaper; he is a Corpse Flower also known as Amorphophallus titanum and he has an enormous and very smelly flower. If you’re lucky, you can meet him. I highly recommend that you visit this show to tour the garden and purchase some Aroids for your own garden. I think you’ll be impressed with the drama they add to your landscape!

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A Giant Sale to Benefit the Wild Members of Our Community!

August 28, 2012 By Jennifer Mennuti Leave a Comment

The Sawgrass Nature Center and Wildlife Hospital is having a Trash to Treasure fundraiser sale on Saturday and Sunday, September 1st and 2nd! This huge, multi-family garage sale will be held indoors from 9:00am to 3:00pm at the Coco Gate Plaza in Margate on the corner of 441 (Sate Road 7) and Coconut Creek Parkway. Items available for purchase include antiques and collectibles, garden supplies, home decor and household items, toys, books, clothes and sporting goods. All proceeds will benefit the center and help them to fulfill their mission to rehabilitate injured or orphaned animals and to educate people about our environment and the species who share it with us. This is a fantastic opportunity to help a great community non-profit resource and purchase items at discount prices. If you live near Coral Springs, there are other ways to get involved with the center through memberships, volunteering, participating in other events, or donating toward their wishlist.

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Get Adopted at the Animal Adoption Fair!

July 16, 2012 By Jennifer Mennuti Leave a Comment

Are you lonely? Are you bored? Do you have time, space, and love to offer to a new furry friend? Stop by the 2nd Annual Animal Adoption Fair in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, August 12 from 10:00am-6:00pm and see if there is an animal who will adopt you! This FREE event is fun for the whole family and will be held indoors with AC at the War Memorial Auditorium! There will be live music, entertainment, food, information tables, exhibits, a GIANT raffle, and friendly and adoptable animals from many shelters and rescue groups. All adoptable cats and dogs at the event are fixed and have their shots. Big 105.9 and Channel 10 will be there broadcasting from the event. Most shelters are full and are in desperate need of people to adopt and foster their rescued animals to prevent euthanasia or the animals living in the crowded shelters for their entire lives. Come out and support this great cause and help solve the pet overpopulation problem! All vendor and sponsor fees will be donated to animal charities and remember, as Bob Barker always says, “Have your pets spayed or neutered!”

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Getting Wired Without Caffeine

June 11, 2012 By Jennifer Mennuti Leave a Comment

The mystery of the bare feet in the window display and the growing crowd of spectators was solved upon closer inspection and an internet search! “Wire has a life of its own sometimes. You can bend it and manipulate it the way you want, but when you undo it, if it goes in a certain way, I’m going to let it flow like that. I’m not going to try and manipulate it too much … so it’s just going to keep growing like a jungle vine of wordage.” That’s a quote from David Zalben, a Miami artist, who is presently exhibiting one of the most fascinating things I have ever seen. A simple phrase, written in a continuous piece of wire sat in the window and said “A Love You Can’t Live Without” which is the title of the exhibit. Many more words looped themselves above the artist’s head in a dangling visual poem which will only grow longer until the exhibit is over. He has a notebook with the rough concept of his intended poetry but makes spontaneous changes as he forms the words in wire relating to love and relationships. The continuous thought-out metamorphosis of his creation, which changes according to how the letters and words appear together, reminds me of how we create our landscape designs. Often, we have conceptual ideas in mind of the landscape we want to create but as we are installing a project, we end up rethinking and shifting things a bit as different ideas present themselves and we can see the physical play of the plants with each other and how they relate to other site features. His spectacle can be seen nightly at the ArtCenter at 800 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach until around July 12th. Our spectacle will persist!

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Food Trucks and Upside-Down Trees: Mondays Just Got Better!

June 6, 2012 By Jennifer Mennuti Leave a Comment

Every Monday night at the Arts Park in Young Circle in Hollywood, Florida there is an event called The Food Truck Invasion. One visit, and you will be certain why they call it an “Invasion” as I had no idea this many food trucks existed in South Florida! The trucks are lined up around the circle and many people were wandering around sampling their menus and enjoying being outdoors for the evening. The event included DJs and there was a big screen showing a Gordon Ramsay show. The center of the park is a great place to relax and people brought blankets and chairs and were also strolling around and sitting by the large fountain. As you stroll around, you can’t help noticing the Baobab Trees which are also known as Upside-Down Trees. There are several in this park and I had been meaning to photograph them for several months. They happen to be blooming right now and the huge, white flowers were attracting just as many flies as the food trucks were attracting humans! If you see Baobab Trees when they aren’t blooming or when they don’t have leaves, you will understand why they are called “Upside-Down.” They have enormously fat trunks and their branches resemble giant root systems as if they had been uprooted and then replanted incorrectly. Native to Africa, they are also referred to as the Tree of Life because they can store so much water in their branches, roots, and trunks that people and animals have survived from drinking their water. Their leaves and seeds are also edible and have medicinal uses as well. They are very slow growing but may live for thousands of years. Hollowed out trunks have served as homes, prisons, bars, bus stops, etc. and a fantastic specimen can also be seen at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden if you happen to be in Miami. Being able to incorporate unusual and fascinating plants and trees makes landscaping in South Florida so much fun!

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Get a Taste of the Tropics at a Fun Fruit Festival!

May 29, 2012 By Jennifer Mennuti Leave a Comment

Mounts Botanical Garden in Palm Beach will be hosting a Tropical Fruit Festival on Saturday, June 23rd, from 10:00am-3:00pm. Arrive early because the first 500 attendees will be able to sample fresh fruit. Whole Foods Market is sponsoring this popular event and will have a sampling table and Chef Allen Susser will be present and performing cooking demonstrations. Chef Allen has written several best selling cookbooks and is a recipient of the James Beard Award as Best Chef in the Southeast. Over 100 tropical fruits will be displayed and many will be for sale as will fruit trees so you can grow your own in your garden. There will also be other related displays and live music. The Palm Beach Chapter of the Rare Fruit Council International is a collaborator for this event and they have monthly meetings at Mounts with guest speakers in case you would like to learn more about the seemingly endless varieties of interesting tropical fruits which we are privileged to be able to grow in South Florida. Incorporating fruit trees in your South Florida Landscape gives you one more reason to venture into the garden. Where space is limited, we also design with fruiting vines such as Dragon Fruit and Passion Fruit or Bromeliads (Pineapples).

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Celebrate Earth Day on Earth Day and on Every Other Day!

March 29, 2012 By Jennifer Mennuti Leave a Comment

There’s a party with a purpose coming up on April 21, 2012 at Hugh Taylor Birch State Park in Ft. Lauderdale! Taking care of our homes involves more than our personal dwellings; we all need to care for our planet. This is the perfect place to learn how to do it and get inspired! This all day event is packed full of activities involving community, sustainability and fun! Some of the planned activities include dune restoration and Sea Oat planting, native tree giveaways for your home landscape and garden, plus live entertainment featuring Teri Catlin, the Didgeridoo Band, and a sunset Drum Circle. There will also be organic and vegan food available as well as local vendors with displays and information. Our South Florida environment is unique and the ways we can care for it are unique and varied as well. The Sea Turtle Oversight Protection Organization will be at the event to enlist volunteers to help with this summer’s Sea Turtle Rescue Program. If you live in South Florida and are interested in helping endangered turtles and witnessing the miracle of a baby sea turtle hatchout, then this organization is for you! There will be workshops throughout the day for kids and adults. The kid’s workshops are directed by Camp Live Oak, Kid’s Ecology Corps, Lori’s Beakers and Bugs Company, The Girl Scouts of America, and Trash to Treasure. Samantha Whitcraft, a marine conservation biologist with Sharksavers.org will be speaking and be sure to catch Ann Wiley’s talk titled “Making Your Backyard Your Bird Feeder.” Take a moment to get to know Trash to Treasure while you are there. They are known as the “Greenest and cheapest art store in South Florida” and they have a demonstration Community Garden in Ft. Lauderdale which contains vegetables, native plants and butterfly plants. They regularly teach rain barrel workshops so you can learn how to collect and use rain water for your garden. Come by this event and let these experts motivate you to explore and enjoy the environment and find additional ways to Go Green!