The Gardens At Cummer Museum

Along a winding road beside the river through neighborhoods of historic upper class homes is the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens. There are places I have never seen and never been in Jacksonville, Florida. It was never my home. More time was spent just to the south along a winding road beside the river in Orange Park, Florida. That too was not where I grew up.

Today a late afternoon excursion was taken to the art museum and the historic gardens of the museum linked to notable landscape names like Ellen Biddle Shipman and Olmsted.

Formerly the homes sites of lumber barons, Arthur and Waldo Cummer, the gardens were saved when the homes were demolished for the present museum.

Formal Italian and English style gardens were laid out by the designers.

Statuary, planters and fountains grace this garden throughout.

A garden down by the river. Yes that is a river, the St. John's River.

And very near the interstate and a view of the down town skyline.

I want one for my garden, but I think I lean more towards a gargoyle than a griffin.

Because my garden will have its living kings and queens of the varmints.

Or maybe I need Diana, the patroness of the hunt.

But it is time to say goodbye to Florida. Until we meet again.

And the first thing I will need when I get back to the low spot on a North Carolina mountain top is the shovel of the snow kind.