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Harry P. Leu Gardens in Winter park, Fl.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 2:30 am
by Bamboo Conne'isseur
Today I went to check out one of the premier gardens in Florida. Located in Winter Park, right next to Orlando, it holds some beautiful varieties of bamboo. Although I was not impressed with its care of the bamboo, it had some really nice specimens. I was particularly impressed with a few of the cold sensitive types, and will definitely grow some of these. The D. Asper was quite a site, even though you could tell it could even become larger than it was. Sporting culms around five inches, to five and a half, it was one of the best ones there. With the colors ranging on the culms from an almost black, brown, and grey, with a slight fur on some, it was an outstanding specimen. Its foot print was rather small for what I was expecting. I was amazed by their B. chungii, which had some rather large culms, ranging between two, to two and a half inch diameter culms, which is more than what it is listed in most places. The beauty of this one was a site to behold, as the reflection of the sun of the ghostly colored culms made this one stand out. I was quite impressed with the stunning bright yellow culms of the B. vulgaris-vittata, and it wowed my boss so much, he has become a fan of bamboo himself, and will purchase this one for his home. Even at its maturity, the culms were in great shape, with zero dirt, or mold on them. The Timor black was pretty nice, but its location didn't seem to get enough sun, so its canopy was quite sparse. The D. latifloris was beautiful, along with the wamin too. A real surprise were both the regular B. vulgaris, and the B. multiplex, both rather common. The vulgaris seems to handle the lack of care quite well, and was still producing quite impressive size culms. The B. multiplex was arranged with several clumps close together, and filled in so well, it gave the appearance of its footprint to be larger than even the Kanapaha specimen in Gainesville. From a distance, all I could think is wow. Its was absolutely huge, and even though it had a lot of dead culms in it, it gave quite the appearance of a almost haunted area surrounding it; almost freakish. When this one came into my view, the look, and size almost gave me chills. There were a few other species I can not remember, that were very nice, incl. a few I have never heard before. I forget the exact name, but one was a Dendro. that I remember was called spotted bamboo, that was quite the beauty.
Overall, the gardens are well worth visiting, even for the other types of plants they have there. There are more than two hundred different palms, and it holds the largest rose garden in the state. I ate about seven different types of oranges, and managed to even grab a smaller ripe papaya. :) The groundkeepers drove by in their carts and paid no attention to us eating the different types of citrus, as most probably go bad anyways.
If anyone is ever in Central Florida, I highly recommend checking out Leu gardens. Here is a link for directions on how to get there, if you find yourself in the area.
http://www.leugardens.org/locate.html

RE: Harry P. Leu Gardens in Winter park, Fl.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 2:46 am
by Roy
The late Richard Waldron is responsible for many of the bamboo varieties growing at Leu Gardens.

RE: Harry P. Leu Gardens in Winter park, Fl.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 2:53 am
by Bamboo Conne'isseur
Many thanks to that pioneer, for his love and dedication to bamboo.

Re: RE: Harry P. Leu Gardens in Winter park, Fl.

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 11:39 pm
by crabby
Roy wrote:The late Richard Waldron is responsible for many of the bamboo varieties growing at Leu Gardens.
I wish I would have had the opportunity of meeting Richard Waldron. I have heard so many incredible things about him.
God Bless!