The Moonlight Garden

The Moonlight Garden was designed in 1928 by Ellen Biddle Shipman, one of the first female landscape architects in America, whose specialty was enclosed gardens with drift beds where flowers bloomed in cycles throughout the year. Her ideas matched what the Edisons envisioned, and Mina Edison significantly influenced changes to the plan to suit her own vision for a formal garden that also created a casual, private area for family and guests to gather. When it was completed in January 1929, the Fort Myers Tropical News described it as surrounded by a tall trellis over which scarlet bougainvillea hung in full bloom, with about 25 separate beds laid out in a neat geometric pattern. The original planting included old stock bougainvillea formerly supported by the south wall of the original laboratory, along with new cedar trees, azaleas, roses, and lilies. In the years that followed, plantings were added or changed to fit the season and climate of south Florida. The garden was restored in 2003 and now displays tall podocarpus trees and flowering plants such as azaleas, roses, water lilies, begonias, and pentas. At Seminole Lodge, it is one of only a handful of remaining Ellen Biddle Shipman gardens.

Fort Myers, Florida · United States