Author: Scott Wallace

Two hurricanes pounded the garden in October! They resulted in a tremendous amount of damage to our oak canopy and the closure of the garden for almost a solid week. We lost several large oaks both in the nature preserve, and in the garden proper. Also, many of the intermediate sized queen palms were leaning badly, and the ground was covered with branches and leaves. Fortunately, we only lost one rare palm to a falling branch, a gorgeous Gaussia Gomez-pompae, a Mexican Bottle Palm that had been here for many years! The mess and the loss of income cost the garden a great deal of time, money, and effort to repair. A new, much younger Bottle Palm was found in a small nursery in South Florida to replace the one on display. Many of the queen palms and some of the fishtail palms were staked up straight and hundreds of thousands of leaves were picked up! We wish to thank all of our volunteers for their heroic efforts in cleaning up the mess and bringing the garden back to its beautiful condition!

Because of the hurricanes, and the monsoon rains prior to the hurricanes, the creek was flooded very badly, and the nature preserve was essentially closed for several weeks. Access was allowed so visitors could observe the roaring water and see the force of nature in changing the landscape of a riverine habitat. Fortunately, the water has now receded, and the path through the forest is completely open again, but one can easily see the remnants of the storm! The Nature Preserve would be a great place for an ecology class to visit as it is a prime lesson in changing habitats and the succession of plants as the forest recovers from damage. It is still a beautiful place to visit and listen to the babbling of the creek as it meanders through the woods.