Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Summer Gardens, Miami

Miami boasts three gorgeous gardens that offer artist projects for an unbeatable combination of nature and culture. Deering Estates, an hour or so south of downtown Miami, offers studios to local artists (Deering Estate Link) Vizcaya, near downtown, hosts projects by invitation (Vizcaya Museum Link) and Fairchild (Fairchild Garden Link) is a sumptuous botanic garden with lotus pond, rainforest and cactus garden, where one will certainly get lost drawing or looking.

Ruche plants in blossom at Deering Estates at Cutler

Promenade to Biscayne Bay
Pass ancient Indian burial grounds on the property,  originally a hotel to serve the railroad


Entrance / exit gate to Vizcaya grounds
(The mansion was built by Deering in 1916 as a winter getaway for the Chicago-based industrialist)

Statuary and limestone lanterns with beautifully colored, warped glass windows

The Great Stone Ship - a vision for an artist project if I ever saw one!
Also serves as a breakwater for the mansion, but Fellini, if you ask me

Orchid garden at Vizcaya - look at that color!

A blushing beauty under the gaze of a lantern

Such innovative beauty in the flowers at Fairchild! Check the lavendar tutu and multiple-pronged crown

The Rainbow Tree, a form of eucalyptis

More gorgeousness at Fairchild

Lovely cannonball blossoms dispersed at the base of their tree

The lotus pond, glimpsed after the rainforest en route to the bamboo

2 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sunday's 6/17/12 New York Times' Arts & Leisure section tells that Josiah McElheny is making a film for Vizcaya to debut December 2012, featuring images from the villa in 1910.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.