Naples Botanical Garden

About Naples Botanical Garden

By the ULTIMATE Miami Editorial Team

A young garden with a big reach, Naples Botanical Garden gathers the plants of the world’s tropics on Bayshore Drive. Here is how it began and how to plan a visit.

A garden for the tropics

Naples Botanical Garden was founded in 1993, and it has grown into one of the most ambitious gardens in the south-east. Its 170 acres combine cultivated gardens with protected natural land, representing seven distinct habitats. The organising idea is geographic: the collections focus on the plants of the tropics and subtropics between the 26th parallel north and the 26th parallel south. Naples sits almost exactly on the northern line.

In 2017 it became the youngest garden ever to receive the Award for Garden Excellence from the American Public Gardens Association, a sign of how quickly it has matured.

It focuses on the plants of the band of the globe between the 26th parallels north and south: Naples sits right on the northern line.

What to see

The cultivated gardens take you around the world: the Caribbean Garden, the Brazilian Garden, Asian gardens, a butterfly garden and water gardens with lilies and lotus. Beyond them, boardwalks and trails lead through restored native habitat, where herons, egrets and ospreys are common.

There are around 50,000 plants in the collections today, and the planting changes with the seasons, so a return visit always shows something new.

Families and events

Children can borrow activity packets and join nature-and-art sessions, and the garden runs workshops on birding and nature journaling. In the holiday season, Night Lights in the Garden fills the paths with illuminations after dark.

Our advice: arrive when the gates open at 9 am, walk the native-habitat boardwalks first while the birds are active, and save the shady cultivated gardens for the warmer hours.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Naples Botanical Garden before you go.