15 Florida Places to Be Nurtured By Nature

"The National Tropical Botanical Garden consists of five gardens, but all are located in Hawaii, except one: The Kampong. Miami, the only major American city with a tropical monsoon climate, is the home of this remarkably beautiful horticultural laboratory. Located in the Coconut Grove neighborhood—the oldest in Miami—the Kampong is a botanical garden with nine acres of lush tropical paradise. It was once the estate and horticultural experimentation site of Dr. David Fairchild, one of the most famous plant explorers in history, for whom the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in nearby Coral Gables is named. Fairchild, a Kansas native, introduced more than 200,000 varieties of exotic plants into the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His lush estate and gardens were named after the traditional Javanese word for an enclosed village, from which English took the word ”compound.” The Kampong contains cultivars of mangos, avocados, bananas, carambola (starfruit) and other exotic flora that Fairchild brought from around the world to experiment with their suitability to Miami’s tropical climate.  It is open to visitors (by advance reservation only) certain daytime hours Monday through Saturday." - ATLAS_OBSCURA