Flamingo Gardens- Botanical Gardens & Wildlife Sanctuary, Davie Florida (close to Fort Lauderdale)

Flamingo Gardens is located approximately 30 minutes from our timeshare in Fort Lauderdale Florida, the Marriott Beachplace Towers.  It is a 60-acre botanical garden and everglade wildlife sanctuary featuring tropical and subtropical plants from around the world including some of the largest trees of their species in the State of Florida known to Florida as Champion Trees.  The highlight for me was the peacocks which are everywhere.

To the left is a showy peacock who was just as interested in the cute little girl as she was with him.

You can see Darren in the bottom right-hand corner to give some perspective on how large this tree is.  This is one of their Champion Trees.

Most of the wildlife here have been rescued and are permanently injured and or non-releasable and would not survive if released back into the wild.  There is a Florida panther on the property and he is 120 pounds, so quite large.

We went to the wildlife encounter at 1:30 and we had three animals introduced to us.

The first was a 3-year-old alligator.  His mouth had been destroyed when he was just a little critter and he ended up at the sanctuary.  The trainer lady said that they were working on making him a prosthetic jaw which I thought was ridiculous.

The second animal was a falcon and the third was a skunk.  All three animals were very interesting to us.  You could tell that the trainers were in love with their animals but the most interesting to me was the skunk.  The skunk had her glands removed, so there was no chance of her spraying.

We took the tram ride which goes around the whole property and it is narrated by the driver. 

It is a 40-minute tour but we got off at about 15 minutes into it just so we could get some exercise.  

I thought that I should take a pic of the Flamingos because the Garden is named after them.  It really should be called Peacock Gardens as these dudes are everywhere and always trying to impress the ladies.

You can tour the historic Wray house, which dates back to the 1930s. 

 Below is a male peacock sitting on the front porch of the Wray House.

There were many new to me trees that I have never seen before.

To the right is a unique tree.   It had ropes falling to the ground that were attached to it.

This tree had a spectacular split-leaf philodendron vine growing up the side of it.

The focus at these gardens seems to be more on the rescued animals than the gardens.  I was expecting to see more flowers but there really aren't all that many.

Bromeliads are quickly becoming one of my favourite plants.  They were in almost every tree latched on and thriving.

The gardens are quite pretty and worth the drive and there is quite a bit of education around the animals and plants.  There is a lot to learn with placard posters everywhere describing everything from pollination to cactus plants.

One of the more interesting animals to me was the peacock.  There are 80 peacocks on the property and most of the males were dressed to express themselves to the ladies with their trains open, trailing and beautiful.

Sadly the female peahens are quite dull in comparison.

This is the other side of the peacock which is also quite interesting but colourless.

We love to watch otters but the otters were sleeping and we have been known to watch otters for hours as they are so fun to watch when they're in their playful moods.

There are numerous friendly birds on the

property that are not shy and will come right up to you.  This adorable little duck to the right was practically asking me to take him home.

There is free parking and I found a $4 off coupon per person and our total was 36 dollars for 2 adults with the coupons.