The Moonlight Garden

After the original Fort Myers Laboratory was removed and sent to Dearborn, Michigan, in 1928, Mina Edison decided to create a more traditional garden space and asked landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman to design an enclosed garden where family and guests could relax and enjoy the surrounding foliage. Shipman's plan featured a rectangular reflecting pool and densely packed perennial plants more attuned to northern climates, but Mina Edison, an accomplished gardener herself, eventually used plants more accustomed to the Florida heat and climate, including Italian cypress, azaleas, lilies, begonias, and the bougainvillea that had originally existed along the old laboratory. Over the following decades, several types of tropical plants were tried or added to fit the Southwest Florida climate. When the garden was completed in January 1929, the Fort Myers Tropical News described it as surrounded by a tall trellis hung with scarlet bougainvillea in full bloom, with about 25 separate beds laid out in a neat geometric pattern. The garden underwent restoration in 2005 and now displays tall, trimmed Podocarpus resembling Italian cypress, along with white and blue plants chosen to catch the moon on clear evenings and several plants known for their fragrance. Ellen Biddle Shipman, born in Philadelphia in 1869 and raised on the American frontier, learned gardening and a love of nature from her grandmother and, after divorcing at age 19 and supporting three children, built a career creating more than 600 residential gardens across the United States. Her signature American Garden style blended Colonial Revival and Arts and Crafts influences to create intimate outdoor rooms with geometrically placed borders and drift beds that changed with the seasons.

Fort Myers, Florida · United States