MY HAPPY PLACE - The Botanical Gardens of Naples

Article by guest author Peter Brooker

(Part 2 following on from my extensive report on Naples, Florida in March 2026 which you can read here).

In the morning we skipped breakfast, as was our routine and drove down to the Botanical Gardens where we enjoyed a short guided tour from a gentleman whose name I've forgotten. But he was insightful enough to tell us that you should never hang your boots on the dead leaves on palm trees. The indigenous people used to do this back in the day, only to find that spiders, nasty ones of course, would take shelter in them.

The Florida scrubs are occasionally home to the Florida Puma and the Florida Bonneted Bat, currently 1 and 2 in the most endangered species list in North America. The Puma said to be as rare as the green flash, has been spotted by our Contractor Dan who told me later, 'yeah they're not that uncommon. Hell I see them all the time on the drive past Alligator Alcatraz, even ran one over one time.'

For anyone playing at home, I made a list of some more plants that might help get the creative juices going.

Flame of Jamaica - (1. An evergreen succulent shrub to small tree is endemic to Jamaica. 2. A not-unpalatable fart spurred on by a night out on the red stripe and takeaway jerk-chicken kebab).

Red Bloodwood - (1. Corymbia gummifera, commonly known as red bloodwood, is a species of tree, rarely a mallee, that is endemic to eastern Australia. 2. A shelved late 70's Clint Eastwood TV series. Eastwood plays Red Bloodwood, a retired marine turned garbage collector (I'm using the American vernacular here of course) who finds several duffle bags of gold bars in a trash can that belong to the mafia. When the mafia come to collect what's theirs, Bloodwood will be waiting for them. TAGLINE "Eastwood is Bloodwood, he's come to take out the trash.").

Here are some more if you wish to play along at home. Lady of the Night, Buddha Belly Bamboo, Golden Trumpet, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (aptly named for its three different shades of purple), and finally, but please try and keep it PG, Golden Shower.

After a mile or so walk around Eden Lake and Sophie's Water Garden I found, what I fantasised to be, some Florida Puma tracks. But admittedly I'm no Pinkerton so it could quite easily have been a club-footed deer or a small child. We had lunch at the cafe, a very serviceable salad, although superseded a rather unpleasant trip to a bathroom that was so unexpectedly log-jammed (pardon the pun) with people, that forcing my way into a cubicle felt like fighting my way into the tube during rush hour. Knowing I had a captive audience outside my cubicle door I kept my secretions as quick and discreet as possible by synchronizing my blasts to those of the hand-dryer. A classic foil that only a seasoned public-toilet shitter such as myself, could pull off.

That night we had dinner at Blackbird, a modern Asian restaurant next to the Naples Bay Resort and Marina. I forget the name of the hotel we stayed at, but it was functional, overlooking the harbour. They had coffee on tap in the foyer and a Christmas Tree in the centre completely bereft of decorations. Very strange. Outside they had a board advertising the soup of the day as Bourbon. Either someone in the hotel's marketing department has a sense of humour, or they really don't rate their own soup.

Next stop Miami.

Photo by Jacob Plumb on Unsplash