CFPACS 2025 Fall Meeting
The meeting is scheduled to start on Saturday, October 4th, 2025, at 10:00 AM in the Longwood area south of Wekiva Springs. Please send an RSVP to cfpacs.membership@gmail.com. The itinerary is included below:
Site 1: Private Garden in Longwood
Time: 10:00AM – 12:00PM
Address: Given to those who RSVP
Description:
- This garden is the “Wekiva Wonder”, as coined by the Orlando Sentinel 2002 full page spread.
- The garden was also featured in and filmed for HGTV “Look What I Did”.
- Matilde and I moved here in 1989 and I keep creating themed areas with architectural features and garden plantings.
- The yard is 1.5 acres wooded and always full of deer, bears, and critters.
- Plantings are mostly Palms, Bromeliads, Citrus, and Ferns.
- Plantings are cold hardy or configured for easy protection.
- The owner is ex-vice-president of the Central Florida Bromeliad Society.
Themed Gardens include:
- “Alhambra Cactus Garden” is modeled after Alhambra in Grenada Spain. Lion fountain rock cactus courtyard with stream running on top of a wall to drive a water wheel.
- “Thunder Mountain Pond” is themed like that Disney ride. Giant faux rock with waterfall and a Koi pond.
- “Pagoda Garden” is reached via a bog garden and bridge. Features 2 Chinese Pagoda buildings saved from the defunct Orlando theme park “Splendid China”
- “Croton Garden” is landscaped with a hypertufa epiphyte tree.
- “Bromeliad Garden” is landscaped with lots of palms, planters, and bromeliads.
- “Bamboo Alley” is a long Bamboo tunnel.
- “Walipini House” is a sunken greenhouse with Orchids and Ferns.
Lunch: 12:00PM – 2:00PM, On your own
Site 2: Private Garden in Longwood
Time: 2:00PM – 4:00PM
Address: Given to those who RSVP
Description:
My wife Angela and I purchased our 1/2-acre property back in 2017 and have been steadily growing out our tropical backyard palm garden ever since. The garden first began with plantings of several tropical fruit trees in 2018 but then shifted focused on growing ornamental collector palms beginning at the 2020 pandemic. With the help of several large oak tree canopies to provide some winter protection, our zone-pushing garden boasts 80+ different palm species, most of which have been grown from seed and/or small seedlings. With inspirations from local botanical gardens including Leu Gardens, and helpful information forums like PalmTalk.org, the garden features a layering mix of fruit trees, bromeliads, epiphytes, ferns, cycads, vines, crotons, philodendrons, flowering trees, bamboos, and of course rare palms.
Some of the palm genus’s include Archontophoenix, Caryota, Veitchia, Roystonea, Licuala, Copernicia, Coccothrinax, Chrysalidocarpus, Chamaedorea, and a few hybrids. Limestone boulders line the shady walking paths in the garden, and a home-made greenhouse gives life to a small backyard palm nursery with many seedlings to be shared with fellow palm enthusiasts.
Auction and Vendor Sale held at the conclusion of the tour.
Please Bring:
Cash for Auction and Sale
Chair
Auction Plant
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