Night Garden

November 26, 2021

Night Garden

There was one additional thing that I wanted to do in Miami before driving back to Miami and that was to attend the Night Garden at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens. This annual light show and immersive show of beautiful light décor, special effects and interactive activities returned this year after taking last year off due to Covid. In the three years since it started, I had not had an opportunity to visit and it was something that I have wanted to do.

Just visiting Fairchild is pretty cool in itself, and I had never been at night so this was something that I was really looking forward to. It has been a few years since I even visited the garden and returning for this special event seemed like a good chance. The gardens have been open to the public since 1938 and feature an extensive collection of rare tropical plants; including palms, cycads, flowering trees, and vines.

The collection at Fairchild Gardens includes rare palms, cycads, orchids, and bromeliads. The collections also include different varieties of ginger. Fairchild has the largest collection of tropical bamboo in the world, with 125 species of bamboo.  The Michaux Bahamas Collection includes native woody plants and flora from botanical expeditions to the Bahamian islands. The Montgomery Palmetum consists of the most documented palm collections with species from all over the world.   Fairchild features some of the world's most exotic tropical fruits, such as Durian from the Amazon, Borneo, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. 

Fairchild Gardens’ Tropical Flowering Trees collection displays over 740 species of flowering trees from all over the world. The most famous tropical flowering tree in Fairchild Gardens is the cannonball tree.  The tree was planted in 1938 and is known for its fragrance.  It is one of the only cannonball trees in the United States.   

Fairchild is also home to the only rainforest in the continental United States.  Fairchild Garden's two-acre rainforest features waterfalls and cascades throughout the rainforest. The rainforest is composed of plants collected from the amazon.  Also, a misting system was created to emulate an authentic rainforest. 

The Night Garden event is a 45-minute walk through twenty display areas over the 83 acres of the garden that features all sorts of cool lighting, special effects including a talking tree and colorful holiday lighting that illuminates the plants in a cool and unique fashion.

Night Garden opens in mid-November and runs through January 2^nd and is visited by literally thousands each year. It sells out most nights and I was fortunate enough to plan ahead and book my ticket to coincide with my drive home from the book fair. The grounds are filled with 125,000 lights and other cool effects including a cool bubble area and one with fake snow.

The images do not begin to capture how cool the experience is and I am somewhat displeased by how they turned out. Shooting holiday lights at night has always been a weakness in my photography but at least the Night Garden gave me plenty of opportunity to practice, 

I know this is something that I want to add to my annual holiday list of things to do. I can’t wait to bring Kathy back to see it and I am certain that there will be cool things that I did not catch on my initial visit. It is so massive and somewhat overwhelming, but well worth the price of admission.

https://fairchildgarden.org/

https://www.thenightgarden.com/