My postcard: February 2017

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Florida - looking for the wildflowers in February...

Tarkiln Bayou Preserve State Park in Pensacola, Florida.

This preserve is home to the many, rare wildflowers.

Eden Garden State Park in Point Washington, Florida

Eden Garden State Park - one of the most beautiful places in Florida.

The house was built in 1897 by William Henry Wesley,

successful lumberman who operated sawmills on the grounds of his property.

In 1963 the place was purchased by Lois Maxon, a paper and publishing business woman from

New York. Lois Maxon renovated the home and filled it with her family heirlooms and antiques.

Ms. Maxon created also beautiful gardens around the house.

In 1968 she donated Eden Gardens to the State of Florida.

Eden Gardens State Park contains approximately 163 acres of land filled with sculptured lawns and ornamental and manicured gardens and many beautiful trees - very large and old oak trees.

Orman House Historic State Park in Apalachicola, Florida

The Orman House, was the home of Thomas Orman, a cotton merchant and businessman in Apalachicola from 1834 to the 1880s. Mr. Orman helped this tiny town become one of the Gulf of Mexico's most important cotton exporting ports during the mid-19th century.

The house was built in 1838, and was used for both business and social gatherings.

The Orman House is one of the most beautiful antebellum homes on the Florida Gulf Coast;

is beautifully furnished and shows the history of Apalachicola in the early settlement days.

Misssion San Luis in Tallahassee, Florida

Mission San Luis - Spanish colonists located their western capital and Catholic mission in 1656

at an Apalachee Indian village in the Tallahassee Red Hills.

It was a place where Apalachee Indians and Spaniards lived together.

Mission San Luis was abandoned by their residents in 1704 after a British invasion.

Alfred B.Maclay Gardens - state park in Tallahassee, Florida

The gardens at Maclay State Park are so beautiful!

The gardens began when the NY financier Alfred B. Maclay and his wife Louise purchased the property with an hunting lodge for their winter home. It was in 1923 when this beautiful ornamental gardens were first planted.

In February, the gardens are in full bloom with beautiful flowering shrubs.

Pebble Hill Plantation in Thomasville, Georgia

Pebble Hill Plantation is a wonderful place located in Southern Georgia,

close to the nice town of Thomasville.

Howard Melville Hanna, industrialist from Cleveland, purchased Pebble Hill

as his second home and transformed this place into his winter destination for hunting, riding horses and entertaining.

Mansion and many other buildings were built in the late 1800's. Plantation had its own
nurse station, they had their own fire station, school, multiple dog kennels with the building where they took care of injured animals, pump house, the vegetable and flower garden, and horse barn.

And also tennis court and swimming pool.

The history of the Pebble Hill Plantation