Advertised at Vero Gardenfest by Cleo and Valkaria Gardens. Also, ad in Florida Gardening Mag.

Edited: 04/05/2012 at 06:51 PM by Central Floridave

This Saturday.

The Last Lecture will be at 10am. Topic: The wonderful stories of a 95 year love affair with exotic plants!

This is NOT at Dr.Browns house/garden, but at Cleo's nursery:

Valkaria Gardens
...where the tropics begin.

8205 Babcock Street
Grant-Valkaria, Florida 32909
321-733-1333
valkariagardens@aol.com

Dr. Brown had his Last Lecture yesterday. Pretty good turn out. Cleo's nursery looks outstanding. Dr.Brown is 95 and I didn't notice any difference in him since the last time I talked to him ten years ago. He happily signed autographs. His speech touched on his years collecting croton, cordyline, and aglaenoma... along with bromeliads and other tropical plants.

There were a few memoriable moments. One is when Dr. Brown said the date he started collecting plants and he said "1852" followed by a long silence. About ten seconds later everyone had calculated the error and got a good laugh out of it.

Another one was when a lady stood up and thanked Dr. Brown for inspiring her into gardening 26 years ago. I got a little teary eye on that one. She was passionate in her praise.

Dr. Brown was appreciative of the big crowd and Cleo also spoke about his time with him and his time in the Philippines.

I'm glad I went!

Valkaria Gardens Nursery is on Babcock on the West side of I-95. Take the malabar exit, then go south on babcock about 5 miles and go over I-95 and its a couple more miles. This place is loaded with ornamentals and is set up as a display garden as well. Very similiar to how Dr. Brown had his private residence with half home, half garden.



If you can't find a plant that tickles your fancy here, then you just are not into plants...



Here is a different variety of Coccothrinax crinita. Common name: Old Man Palm. As you can see the hair is different. Cleo called it an Old Woman Palm instead.



Got Cordyline?



Got Croton?



Got Bromeliad?



Got statue?



The Last Lecture begins.



Dr. Brown is 95 years old and is still chipper. A little slower and repeated himself a few times, but at 95 looking great!



Dr. Brown and Cleo talking about the history of the books he wrote. Here he is holding Enc. of Croton.



Here he is signing my copy of his 1960 book Florida's Beautiful Crotons. Its a collectors item and difficult to find.

Just think, this book is over 50 years old. It is older than me.

Here we are in 2012! Wow. Time flies, eh?!?

I got the book that he's holding in the picture, " A Codiaeum Encyclopedia Crotons Of The World". He signed for me April 12, 2008!!! Is that the same book you got, Dave?

I've got the Enc of Croton and Enc. of Cordyline. But, the photo of him signing the book is from 1960 called Florida's Beautiful Crotons. It is out of print and I found it on E-bay.

I'm sure it's been publicized, but Dr. Brown died Nov. 1, at home, age 97. Jeff Searle, Palmtalk

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wavewatcher - >ww - >wavewatcher, again

Shoot, I didn't see that. Bummer. Rest In Peace Dr. Brown.