It’s not exactly a secret garden, but it’s close.
The Berne Davis Gardens have stood in their current spot since the early ‘80s, but many people still don’t know about the lush botanical gardens named after one of the city’s best-known arts matrons. Despite the fact that the gardens sit just one street down from one of Fort Myers’ most popular attractions, The Edison & Ford Winter Estates.
But the gardens’ managers, the Fort Myers-Lee County Garden Council, say they’ve been making changes and doing what they can to get the word out about this hidden gem.
It’s a beautiful place that deserves to be seen, says master gardener Margaret Walker, who oversees a team of 10 volunteer master gardeners who constantly tend to the gardens’ flowers, trees, vines and other plants.
“There’s places to sit,” Walker says. “And you can just kind of drink in the beauty. … And it’s quiet. It’s peaceful.”
A tour of the Berne Davis Gardens in Fort Myers
Walker gave a tour of the gardens recently to a News-Press reporter as a cool breeze blew through the gardens, wind chimes tinkled and a nearby fountain gurgled. As she strolled along the winding shell and brick pathways, she stopped frequently to point out the many highlights along the way:
A sprawling live oak tree with massive branches stretching across the lawn,Bees flitting around the bright-red flowers of a Jatropha tree,A vanilla plant with tiny green flower buds (part of the gardens’ edible plants section),The Christmas-like coleus plant with its festive red and green leaves,Twisting, shapely bonsai trees,Drooping ferns,Orange-red crotons,Delicate orchids,And many more flowers, vines, trees, bushes and other plants.
They’re all native Florida plants or Florida-friendly plants that don’t hurt the environment.
“We want to focus on what’s beautiful in Florida,” Walker says.
Attracting more people to Fort Myers ‘secret’ garden
The Berne Davis Gardens certainly qualify as one of those beautiful things. And the volunteers who run the approximately 1.5-acre gardens are trying to make more people aware of the place, says Susan Fero, a master gardener and president of the Fort Myers-Lee County Garden Council.
They’ve expanded the gardens’ hours to two days a week during snowbird season (Tuesdays and Thursdays), and they’re considering weekend hours, too. They’ve also improved their website and increased their social-media presence, especially with the garden council’s Facebook page.
Many people are still finding out about the place, though. But the people who do go there love the serene calm and inspiring beauty.
Some people do yoga there. Others read. Others paint pictures of the plants and flowers. And some just sit there and look.
“We have people that come, and we’ll say, ‘Come back next time and bring your lunch,’” Walker says. “You can have lunch in the gazebo. … That’s really important to us because we want everybody to enjoy this place.”
One of those people is Fort Myers resident Alex Bremner, niece of the gardens’ namesake, the late Berne Davis. That’s the same Davis who donated generously to Lee County’s arts and culture scene until her death in 2016.
Bremner — a member of the Periwinkle Garden Club, just like her aunt used to be — loves wandering through the gardens when she goes there for meetings in the garden’s office building.
“It’s a very pretty, peaceful place,” Bremner says.
Her aunt certainly agreed, she says, and would visit the garden until the later years of her life. That is, when she wasn’t attending her own plants and landscaping at her Wales Drive home.
“She loved it,” Bremner says. “She thought it was a beautiful idea. She thought we should plant gardens and flowering trees everywhere.”
Home to 27 Fort Myers area garden clubs, plant societies
The gardens are owned by the City of Fort Myers, but leased and managed by the garden council.
The property is divided into various mini gardens based on plant type — some of them tended by members of the 21 local garden clubs and six plant societies that meet regularly in the garden’s office building.
The gardens are always a work in progress. Over the last three years, they’ve expanded their orchid collection, for example, and improved many of the various plant sections (their latest project: Adding more pink to their “pink garden.”)
They’re also looking forward to when construction ends on nearby Larchmont Avenue. That’s expected to happen sometime in January, Fero says, and will open up the gardens’ secondary Larchmont entrance on the Edison & Ford Estates side of the property.
Fero can’t wait for more people to see Berne Davis Botanical Gardens. The more, the better.
“We continue to be a place that’s friendly for people who want to learn about gardening or take a quiet walk,” Fero says.
More about Berne Davis Gardens: Times, location and more info
The Berne Davis Gardens are at 2166 Virginia Ave., Fort Myers, just off McGregor Boulevard near Edison & Ford Winter Estates.
They’re open 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays (October through May). Off season, those hours drop to one day a week: 9 a.m. to noon Tuesdays (June through September). Call or email for other possible hours to visit.
Admission is free, but donations are accepted.
For more information about Berne Davis Botanical Gardens, call 332-4942, email fmlcgardencouncil@gmail.com or visit fmlcgardencouncil.com/about-the-council/berne-davis-gardens or facebook.com/FMLCGC.
Charles Runnells covers arts and entertainment for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. To reach him, call 239-335-0368 or email crunnells@usatodayco.com. Follow or message him on social media: Facebook(@charles.runnells.7), Instagram (@crunnells1) and X (@CharlesRunnells)
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