If you think Sarasota is just a lot of sun, surf and white sand beaches where tanned, hard-bunned boys with sixpack abs and overly endowed babes frolic, mostly naked, you're partially right. We got lotsa sun, surf and white sand. Sarasota is also a cultural Mecca; chock full of museums, art galleries, ballet, opera, our very own symphony orchestra and the renowned Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, which draws major league performers and traveling Broadway productions. And to feed the perennial snowbirds, we have more than our fair share of upscale restaurants.
But that's the stuff that gets most of the "COME TO SARASOTA" ink.
The secret of Sarasota is a small slice of paradise known as the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, a 13-acre haven as beautiful as it is peaceful.
Bordered by Sarasota Bay (itself a shimmering jewel), Hudson Bayou and the red bricks of Palm Avenue, it's within walking distance of the center of downtown. Yet it's so isolated you think you are in another world. You are. You're in the Flower Zone.
A ticket to the Gardens could come with a guarantee to lower your blood pressure. As soon as you drive onto Palm Avenue from speeded up U.S. 41, your stress and tension dissipate. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings could have had this place in mind when she wrote; "I do not understand how anyone can live without one small place of enchantment to turn to."
This is it. A series of gardens, displays and statuary joined by pathways, markers that describe these gifts of Mother Nature and park benches to sit on, relax and reflect. There's also a gift shop to spend money so you won't feel completely untethered.
A favorite area is the Display House where myriad beautiful epiphytic plants- especially bromeliads and orchids – are placed at the peak of their colorful bloom. With a decidedly tropical appearance, it takes only a tad of imagination to get the sense of being in a rainforest – without the nagging discomfort of bugs, snakes and pesky commandos.
Nearby, a pond filled with Japanese Koi splash among bald cypress, elephant ear and various water lilies. Claude Monet once said, "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." This site illustrates why he was so fond of painting water lilies.
But you don't have to be a flowerphile to enjoy a day here. No other place in Sarasota provides a more romantic backdrop to stroll hand in hand with a loved one. Several areas are frequently used for weddings. A gazebo practically shouts at you, "Propose to her here." Every place you look offers a Kodak moment.
My favorite site is the baywalk sanctuary, a wooden walkway amid of black mangroves, white mangroves and buttonwoods that juts into the bay. The hustle and bustle of the city is within view yet seems so remote. A short time here underscores the wisdom of protecting nature's gifts. (Resist the temptation to carve your initials on the railing.)
Other individual gardens and displays include areas devoted to hibiscus, slow growing cycads, succulents, huge banyan trees with their imposing aerial roots, mighty oaks draped with Spanish moss. Near the Selby home, today a bookstore, grows a strand of bamboo that once protected the Selby family's view of offending development then taking hold in Sarasota.
The tropical food garden is filled with all manner of edible staples, some as common as the banana and pineapple and others novel, like black sapote with its licorice-like taste and giant-leaf edible hibiscus.
The visual delights of a day here tell only a part of the story. During its 25 years, the Gardens have developed a worldwide reputation for scientific research, educational programs and expeditions to exotic locales to bolster its collections. Its field sites to study canopy ecology are in Africa, Australia, Costa Rica and Belize. The grounds' hallmark historic mansion houses a museum.
For the likes of you and me the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens is a place to get away from the crowd. But for crying out loud, please don't pick the flowers; it makes them sooo mad.
Selby Gardens is at 811 S. Palm Ave., Sarasota. It is open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults, defined as age 12 or older, children 6-11 $4, under 5 free. For a preview check out their comprehensive Web site. If you want to chitchat with someone call 941-366-5731.
This article appears in May 17-24, 2001.