Whether you choose to let the trees tower over you or to view them close-up, each
has its own charm. A couple hold hands while they cross a bridge over a flowing water feature.
The multicolored bark of a Rainbow Eucalyptus.
A honeybee works the blooms of a Red Saraca tree.
The clocklike pattern of a thatch palm frond.
Photos by Jerry Lower, Thomas Leming
and Mary Kate Leming/The Coastal Star
By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley
Whether you want to rest under the canopy of a royal poinciana, power walk under palm trees or ponder the monkey puzzle tree, make your destination the Deerfield Beach Arboretum.
It is part of Constitution Park with its playground as well as tennis and basketball courts. This 2.5-acre “Tree Zoo,” as it’s fondly called, was the brainchild of city forester H.W. “Zeke” Landis.
In 1994, he approached the city with the idea of turning what was a neighborhood park with limited landscaping into almost 10 acres covered with exotic as well as native trees and bushes.
Today, as you walk the half-mile circular macadam path, you’ll pass through a Japanese garden, a bamboo forest, a wetland area, a butterfly garden and more.
You’ll see more than 200 species of trees and palms from five continents, including almost 50 different flowering trees, 20 native trees, 20 wetland trees, 35 tropical fruit trees, 55 palms, 20 exotic trees and 20 bamboos.
You are welcome to wander the trails on your own. Many of the plants are labeled, although some tags are well worn and difficult to read. Or, if you’d like to learn more, opt for one of the free weekly tours offered by volunteers, who also tend this garden.
Either way, your journey is bound to take you under the red torri gate that marks entry to the Japanese garden. Although its trees and shrubs look like they hail from the land of the rising sun, few of the specimens are authentically Japanese.
Instead, you might say this is a Japanese-style garden. The plants provide the look you expect but they grow well in our tropical clime. There’s plenty of tall bamboo, including giant timber and golden Hawaiian blowing in the breeze and sounding like natural wind chimes.
Continuing on our tour, provided by Jerry Behan, president of the Friends of the Deerfield Beach Arboretum, we come upon a mast tree. It stands tall and straight like the mast of a ship. You often find them used singly or planted close together in a row like a giant picket fence.
In another area of the arboretum where native plants dominate, we see a Simpson’s stopper. That’s a native Florida tree with red-tinged leaves, red berries birds love to eat and fragrant white flowers.
In case you are wondering why it’s called a stopper, Behan explains: “Way back, when they didn’t have a Walgreen’s on every corner, if someone had diarrhea, they went into the woods and got the seeds, leaves and bark from this tree that they’d use to make a concoction that they drank. And that would stop them up,” he says.
And don’t miss the Jamaican dogwood, another Florida native. It is nicknamed fishfuddle because if you take the leaves and seeds, grind them and throw them on the water, the combination stuns the fish below. That’s when they float to the top, where they can be netted.
“Of course it’s illegal to fish like that in Florida so don’t do it,” warns our guide.
The baobab tree from Africa looks like it was planted upside down, with its fat trunk capped with what look like roots in the air. But no mistake was made. That’s just how it looks, we are told.
Now perhaps you are wondering about that monkey puzzle tree I mentioned “pondering” at the beginning of this piece.
Well, tell the kids to look at this evergreen but don’t touch. Its scale-like leaves have sharp edges and there are plenty of prickers.
In fact, that’s how this well-armed tree got its name. After all, it would be a real puzzle for even an accomplished scamp such as a monkey to climb it.
Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley is a certified master gardener who can be reached at debhartz@att.net when she’s not in her garden.
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