We recently decided to tour the beautiful Leu Gardens here in Orlando, Florida. The Harry P. Leu Gardens are a semi-tropical and tropical garden here in Orlando. Well, isn’t any garden in Florida tropical? Hahaha

The Leu Gardens in Orlando

The gardens are divided into different themes across the 50 acres and Leu Gardens is bordered on one side by a lake. The grounds are shaded by 200 year old oaks dripping in Spanish Moss giving off that Old Southern charm we all know and love when living here in the South.

The gardens are an extensive mix of azaleas, bamboo, bananas, bromeliads, camellias, citrus, crepe myrtles, various flowering shrubs and trees, magnolia, palms, perennials and my favorite area the rose garden.

Some of the various gardens include the Bamboo Garden, the Butterfly Garden (which was one of my favorites), the Herb Garden, the Vegetable Garden and the Rose Garden (another favorite of mine).

The Leu Gardens were started by Mr. and Mrs. Harry P. Leu, who in 1936 purchased Leu House and 40 acres of land. The Leus traveled all over the world and brought back many exotic plants and flowers for their gardens. In 1961, the Leus deeded the house and the gardens to the city of Orlando.

The original plantation style house, built in 1888, still sits on the grounds and is used as museum space. Sadly, it suffered some major damage due to Hurricane Irma and is closed for renovations. I’ve always loved those old plantation style homes and this one is absolutely beautiful, at least what we could see from the outside.  I hope to one day be able to check out the inside.

My favorite area was over by the Rose Garden, it was so open and green with small pink and red roses in bloom all around a center fountain. Also, in this area is the horseshoe fountain. You can hold your special event at Leu Gardens and the ex-Event Planner in me was thinking about how the grounds could be laid out for special events like weddings. In fact, we attended a wedding there about 14 years ago.

Sadly, being that it is the end of Summer here (although it still feels like we are in the middle of it) there were not a lot of flowers in bloom. We really want to go back to when there are more colors in bloom, probably in the Spring.

Leu Gardens holds special events and classes throughout the year so check out their site to see what is going on. If you are ever in the area, make sure to go tour these beautiful gardens. Admission is only $10 and free on Mondays this month.

To see more of the gardens, check out my video below.