Plant Collectors' Gardens

Collectors of all types seek the rarest, most prized items, and it's no different for plant collectors. They take their plant collections very seriously. Rebecca's Garden travels to southern Florida to admire a few gardeners' rare and exotic plant collections.

Eleven years ago, plant collector Magaly Blanco bought an abandoned cottage on five acres of land. She'd always dreamed of having an English cottage garden, and the setting was perfect. But her cottage garden takes a more tropical turn. As you walk in, you see exotic plants — big leaves, palm fronds and the really rare trees that, when they bloom, look somewhat prehistoric.

This garden with its lush, green foliage resembles a rainforest.

While Magaly's collection is spread over several acres, her friend Fernando Sanchez has packed his rare plant collection into a small lot just blocks away from the city. "I feel a garden must offer some kind of refuge," he says. "This is what I feel my garden especially offers."

Fernando's refuge features winding paths and thick vegetation that's so dense it could very well be in the Amazon rain forest. When it comes to creating a garden, Fernando follows nature's cue in placing his plants. Nature doesn't group 12 of one species together or 14 of another. In nature, trees seed themselves and the wind scatters the seed. So, in Fernando's garden, you might find a palm in a corner that you would never expect.

Framed by native coral rock walls, Mari Davies' garden is a bounty of exotic plants, rare palms and tropical fruit trees. "My garden is a wondrous place filled with excitement, color, peace and serenity, and butterflies and caterpillars," she says. "I have an extensive collection of palms, some of them quite rare. I probably have about 60 or 70 different species of plants."

Mari chose many of her plants for the leaf texture. "It's just incredible that there can be so many shades of green, so many shapes of leaves and so many things that grow on them. It gives me a lot of joy — just waking up in the mornings and seeing something in bloom, something new. You wake up with an anxiety to see what's out there every day."

And so the friendly competition continues with Mari, Magaly and Fernando, cherishing the crowned jewels of their exotic gardens.

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