We didn’t even know this existed until we stayed on Briar Grove and had to drive up Old Lake Wilson Road to get to the 192. It was a fairly cool day and it looked like a rain so we decided to pop in after breakfast. We were very glad we did.
It is free of charge to enter and you need about an hour. It is not open on Mondays and does shut the last two weeks in July and you won’t find this “attraction” open Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day, July 4th. The hours are 9.30am to 4.30pm, Tuesday to Sunday.
There are two parts to it – the indoor Conservatory and the outdoor nature walk. In the conservatory, you feel as though you are in the Rainforest – lots of exotic plants, birds, fish, chameleons, swans, turtles, parrots and cockatoos. It is warm in here and it does feel very like the tropics. All the plants are labelled with their scientific name and their areas of origin – my mother thought she was in heaven! She is a real plant lover and spends a lot of time in the garden at the villa – not that many of these rare plants are available at Wal-Mart's Garden Centre! It is 10 acres in size and the owners are “orchid mad” and are very highly thought of in the orchid sales arena.
The nature walk is a walkway through beautiful outdoor displays of over 2000 orchids with the aviary nearby. There are plenty of places to sit down and relax and take in the surroundings and it has a very therapeutic and relaxing feel to it – a nice change in Orlando! It has been laid out very well with lovely waterfalls and is a nice place to take photos with wooden bridges over streams and a really cute miniature cabin. You can have wedding photos taken here which I can imagine would look fantastic. There were “gardeners” dotted around and were very friendly and chatty.
It was a little boring for the little ones but once we came to the little gift shop they were quiet happy as we bought them some lovely bits of jewellery and there are also T-Shirts and silk orchids to take home. There is a huge list of plants for sale but not sure that they would travel too well in a suitcase. Nevertheless, this was well worth a visit and Mom and Dad will definitely visit again (if only to get away from the kids!).