Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, one of the top places to visit in Florida if you’re a nature lover, has opened a garden designed just for kids.
There’s a new reason to visit Central Florida on your next vacation if you have nature loving kids – Hammock Hollow Children’s Garden at Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida. With LEGOLAND Florida Resort just 11-miles away, staff at Bok Tower Gardens understands their visitor demographics are changing and designed a space that encourages families to be inspired through outdoor learning, play and exploration.
Landscape and Interpretive Experiences Just for Kids
Florida’s diverse ecology and its keystone species are the basis for the underlying landscape and interpretive experiences at Hammock Hollow Children’s Garden. The kid-friendly Garden is divided into zones based primarily on existing vegetation, landform and microclimate.
- River Walk is an interactive fountain water play area was inspired by the unique geology of Florida.
- Heart of the Hammock is dominated by large existing oaks and provides a cool shade and a place for creative play, exploration, and quiet observation and reflection.
- Pine Place is inspired by the subtle beauty and open canopy of the native sand hill landscape.
- Bird Hollow is a low topographic bowl where cypress trees mark the entry, leads visitors along a narrow boardwalk that winds its way through the hollow.
Hammock Hollow emphasizes the beauty of native plants integrating stories of their interdependence with animals.
Kid-Friendly Exploration
Visitors are greeted by a climbable pebbled-covered sculpture in the form of an indigo snake lying in a sandy play area. Next, springs gush from karst ledges of native limestone, and for the adventurous child, a segmented tunnel through the hillside allows them to imagine life as a gopher tortoise, an iconic species of concern on the Lake Wales Ridge.
Featuring almost three acres of nature play, Hammock Hollow Children’s Garden teaches conservation and the vital connection between animals, plants, and people. There is beautiful art, cooling water features, vibrant plantings, a boardwalk, a stage for little performers, and music area. Kids have things to climb on, under and through, as well as places to build, dig and create.
These new garden experiences are delightful for the young and young-at-heart as all visitors will be enchanted by the natural beauty, discovery-based learning and unique horticultural elements.
Hammock Hollow Children’s Garden is included with General Admission. Bok Tower Gardens also hosts events at their new Outdoor Kitchen & Edible Garden.
You may also be interested in Lake Wales, Florida’s Natural Growers Grove House, or Lake Wales History Museum.
