Looking for something festive to do during the holidays? An evening visit to Selby Gardens in downtown Sarasota, Florida in December is the place to be.
For the past 20 years, Selby Gardens has developed an amazing light show in the gardens that brings in happy visitors of all ages. Lights in Bloom features more than two million lights illuminating the gardens and walkways of the Downtown Sarasota campus.
Admission Pricing
Early Entry Tickets (5:30 pm – 9): December 8 – January 3. Not open Christmas eve, Christmas day or New Years Eve.
$40 for non-members, $35 for members, $20 for children 5-17, free for children 4 and under.
General Admission tickets (6:30 pm – 9): $30 for non-members, $25 for members, $15 for children 5-17, free for children 4 and under.
Parking Information
A limited number of on-site parking vouchers are available for each night of Lights in Bloom® and may be purchased along with your tickets, while supplies last. Only guests who purchased a parking voucher will be permitted to park on site.
Free parking nearby with trolley service to and from the Downtown Sarasota campus will be available.
On our visit, we parked in the downtown Sarasota parking garage. Downtown was bustling and the restaurants were filling fast. We ate dinner outside at an Italian restaurant called Bevardi’s Salute which featured a lovely couple serenading soft rock. The food was great too.
After dinner, we realized it was less than one mile to walk to the gardens, and parking is tough, so we decided to get our steps in. We walked the less than one mile to the garden entrance passing friendly folks wearing Christmas light necklaces who announced they were on a downtown bar crawl.
We walked through an artsy area with pretty window displays and painted sidewalks.
The Sarasota Trolley went by filled with smiling tourists on their way to view homes with spectacular light displays.
As we approached the park, the first building you notice is the Payne Mansion with lit butterflies in the lighted tress. For the evening event, our tickets were purchased in advance, and we were directed to a different entrance than the usual spot that goes through the gift shop.
Once our tickets were scanned, we stepped into a tropical winter wonderland featuring more than two million lights, festive photo opportunities, activities and entertainment.
USA Today ranked Lights in Bloom as one of the 10 Best Readers’ Choice contest for Best Botanical Garden Holiday Lights in the country
As a first time visitor, I was fortunate that my sister was familiar with the layout of the gardens. People often take guided tours or use a map for a self-guided tour. Just inside past the entrance is the Tropical Conservatory which was unfortunately closed in the evening as the light show is all outdoors.
RAINFOREST
Our first adventure as we entered the gardens was the Rainforest area compete with a beautiful waterfall. We passed the Koi pond with giant fish and the towering Bamboo garden.
An elevated boardwalk brought us above tropical plants and past the Banyan grove of giant trees. We encountered the Ann Goldstein’s Children’s Rainforest Garden equipped with tunnels and rope swings and even children! This is a great place for the kids to explore and release some energy.
Just past the rainforest is the Selby house cafe decorated to look like a Gingerbread house in front of the great lawn. More festive music playing as folks enjoy a bite to eat.
DESERT
Following the lighted trail, we came across lights illuminating cacti, succulents, and low lying desert plants.
All the while, the Christmas tunes are playing, children and older folks are being wheeled through the paths, and some parents are enjoying the evening drinking refreshments in red solo cups.
MANGROVES AND PALMS ALONG THE HARBOR
An unexpected surprise awaited as we found a trail through the mangroves and suddenly saw the harbor. The mangrove bay walk is a scenic boardwalk through the mangrove with an extended path overlooking the harbor. As we looked out at the lights on the water, we noticed quite a few boats adorned with colored lights. It seems we had missed the Sarasota Boat parade. Only so much fun we can fit into a holiday season, but we are trying!
Once we passed the mangroves, we entered the great lawn to walk through the flamingo arcs, then back to the path through a variety of palm tress.
One section visited by many was the wishing tree. You select a ribbon, make a wish and then tie it to the giant Banyan tree.
Can you guess what we wished for?
What would you wish for?
Passing close to the cafe, we saw a bar set up and an ice-cream truck. Still full from dinner, it didn’t stop us from getting a couple of hot fudge sundaes. Yummy!
NATIVE FLORIDA
The next section invited us across a peninsula to admire the lights of the whole garden across the Tidal Lagoon. This is the place we began to encounter many well-dressed adults who were venturing out from their holiday party in the Payne mansion.
Looks like a beautiful place to hold an event.
In fact, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens announced that Phase One of its three-phase Master Plan for its Downtown Sarasota campus will open to the public on January 11, 2024.
The project adds 188,030 square feet of new facilities and amenities to Selby Gardens’ expansive campus on Sarasota Bay, which is uniquely dedicated to the display and study of epiphytic orchids, bromeliads, ferns, and other tropical plants.
Phase One features the following components:
- The cutting-edge new facility, which houses parking, a garden-to-plate restaurant, a new giftshop, vertical gardens, and a nearly 50,000 square-foot solar array that will make Selby Gardens the first net-positive energy botanical garden complex in the world; Net-Positive is a new way of doing business which puts back more into society, the environment and the global economy than it takes out.
- The state-of-the-art Plant Research Center
- The open-air Welcome Center
- a major stormwater management system to clean millions of gallons of water each year.
- a publicly accessible recreational trail enabling transportation to the campus and the bayfront.
- new garden and water features with more open space, including a Lily Pond Garden
DISPLAY GARDENS
We ended our visit walking through the butterfly garden, bromeliad garden, fragrance garden and edible garden. No, we did not eat anything there.
A beautiful tree was lit up in front of the mansion and butterfly lights displayed throughout the area.
You can tell a lot of effort and thought was put into the design and implementation of this display.
I am looking forward to visiting the Selby Gardens again during the day and witnessing the growth and improvements they have planned.
I would also like to see all the tropical plants especially the orchids, bromeliads and flowers in the fragrance garden during the day.
Soon the new restaurant opening called The Green Orchid will be the world’s first net positive energy restaurant entirely utilizing solar power. The restaurant will be operated by Michael’s on East and will feature a rooftop edible garden that will provide fresh produce for the menu. The edible garden is being planned, planted, and maintained by Operation EcoVets, a nonprofit organization that provides personal, educational, and professional growth opportunities for veterans.
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More than 98% of the funding for these improvements has come from private donations, making this project truly a gift to the City of Sarasota.
Attracting over 300,000 visitors a year, Selby Gardens is celebrating its 50th anniversary and looking toward the future with this ambitious expansion for its Downtown Sarasota campus, which is one of the most biodiverse botanical gardens in the world. What better way to celebrate the last 50 years than by putting in the necessary infrastructure for the next 50?
The second and third phases of the Master Plan will include the following components:
- A hurricane-resilient greenhouse complex to house Selby Gardens’ world-renowned living collections;
- A learning pavilion offering expanded capacity for school programs and enhanced indoor and outdoor classroom space for children and adults;
- Restoration of the landmark Payne Mansion, which serves as the Museum of Botany & the Arts;
- Unification of all walking paths throughout the campus;
- Bolstering of sea walls surrounding the property and renovation of docks.
So many fun places to visit in the Sarasota area, my new home town. Feeding and washing the elephants is on top of my list along with doing yoga with the elephants. I love the beaches and enjoyed riding horses at the beach for my part-time job too.
Retiring to Florida offers a multitude of outdoor activities and I plan to experience as many as I can.
Where will you go next?
