Bok Tower Gardens is a National Historic Landmark located in Lake Wales, Florida. It was built by Edward Bok in the early 1920s. Bok was the editor of Ladies Home Journal, which was a pillar of the magazine industry for well over 100 years. The 250 acre property sits on top of one of the highest points in the state and is surrounded by citrus groves. Bok originally developed the land to be a bird sanctuary.
The main attraction of the gardens is the 200 foot singing bell tower that plays beautiful songs every hour. There are numerous paved and well-groomed trails throughout the gardens that wind through open areas of native flowers and grasses as well as wooded pathways that provide welcome shade during the summer months. The gardens are a magnet for butterflies and often attract numerous hummingbirds.
Bok Tower Gardens has a partnership with the Wawa convenience store chain which offers free admission on the last Thursday and Friday of each month throughout the summer. It’s a great promotion for the park as it brings in many visitors during the hottest days of the year. Bok Tower Gardens offers attractive annual memberships that include reciprocal admission arrangements with other parks such as Marie Selby Gardens in Sarasota. Bok Tower Gardens also hosts several special events throughout the year, including outdoor concerts and native plant sales. They even allow you to bring your dog and provide ample cleanup stations.
We took advantage of the Wawa Days promotion with the hope of finding some hummingbirds. The flowers of Bok Tower Gardens often attract the fascinating hummingbird clearwing moths. According to one of the park attendants, the moths usually show up later in the day. But we arrived early to beat the heat so we didn’t see them. The attendant also told us about freeze damage done to many of the plants last winter. Unfortunately, the fire bush plants that are highly favored by hummingbirds were hard hit by the frost and have been very slow to recover. Consequently, there weren’t any hummingbirds to be seen either.
Despite the lack of flowers compared to normal years, the butterflies and bees were active. Just about every garden with blooms had butterflies gliding around. Several beautiful species provided some good photo opportunities.
This link provides more information about Bok Tower Gardens. https://boktowergardens.org
Additional photos have been uploaded to the Insects gallery.
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