About Gardens - Vizcaya
Source: https://vizcaya.org/collections/gardens/about-gardens
Archived: 2026-04-23 17:10
About Gardens - Vizcaya
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The Gardens
Vizcaya’s European-inspired gardens are among the most elaborate in the United States. Reminiscent of gardens created in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italy and France, the overall landscape design is conceived as a series of rooms.
The central space is dominated by low hedges, or parterres, in a geometric arrangement. Beyond that are the evocative Secret Garden, the intimate Theater Garden, the playful Maze Garden and the once-watery domain of the Fountain Garden. On either side of this designed landscape, James Deering preserved the native forest.
Facts About The Gardens
The Art and Architecture
Vizcaya’s exuberant gardens are characterized by an abundance of architectural structures and details, elaborate fountains, and antique and commissioned sculptures. The use of sculptures that were already old and of soft and porous coral stone resulted, quite intentionally, in the gardens having a weathered appearance soon after their completion. To further the appearance of age, Deering and
Paul Chalfin
planted numerous mature trees, along with vines and plants that would drape themselves over the garden structures.
The Landscape Architect
Landscape architect
Diego Suarez
referenced many places in the design of Vizcaya’s formal gardens; most are around Florence and Rome. In the outer gardens that no longer exist, Vizcaya’s creators instead looked to the Everglades, North Africa and even Asia for landscape and architectural inspiration.
The Garden Mound
The original plan for the formal gardens included a series of terraces that began at the Main House and ended at a large lagoon. Suarez realized that the light reflecting off the water would be blinding to garden visitors and that the formal gardens would melt into the jungle beyond—hardly a fitting conclusion for such a grandly conceived landscape. He cleverly redesigned the entire formal garden and added the Garden Mound, an artificial hill that blocks the view from the house and creates long perspectives on its sides.
At the Garden Mound and elsewhere, Chalfin embellished Suarez’s design and their combined inventiveness created Vizcaya’s uniquely romantic subtropical gardens.
Support The Preservation Of Vizcaya
Donate online
About The Living Collection
Collection Management
As part of the maintaining Vizcaya's living collection, the oak trees on the Garden Mound are regularity trimmed to be more resilient during storms. Photo by Alejandra Serna.
Vizcaya’s diverse horticultural collections range from 400-year-old trees nestled in endangered subtropical forests to an orchid collection numbering over 2,000 specimens. Our living collections are managed similarly to our art collection—plants are catalogued, researched and conserved.
The Native Forest
Red Stopper Champion Tree at Vizcaya. Photo by Alejandra Serna.
When Vizcaya was built, some of the property was covered in dense subtropical forest, now called rockland hammock. This forest consists of plants and trees that adapted to growing on coral rock. Never a widespread ecosystem in Miami, the native forest was almost entirely razed for development. James Deering saw this occurring and made a conscious decision to preserve the forest, building his mansion next to the water instead.
The forest is now home to many endangered plants, such as The Redberry Stopper,
Eugenia confusa
; Bitterbush,
Picramnia pentandra
; and the Brittle Maidenhair Fern,
Adiantum tenerum
. Some plants found here exist in only one or two other places in the world. Vizcaya’s forest is also home to 8 known national champion trees — the largest of their kind in the United States.
The Mangrove Shoreline
Students explore and help clean up Vizcaya's mangrove shorline during Wild Vizcaya. Photo by David Almeida.
Deering also saved a portion of the once-extensive mangrove forests that lined the shoreline of the property. He recognized that these trees protect the gardens from salt air and wind, and this forest still shelters the gardens today. Vizcaya actively manages our forests to ensure their long-term health; and to help perpetuate these plants, we allow limited seed harvests every year.
Highlights of Original Plantings
Exotic Gardens truck delivering palm tree to Vizcaya. Photo dated November 28, 1921. Photo courtesy of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Archives.
After the land was cleared, Vizcaya’s extensive and elaborate gardens were built, taking almost eight years. During construction, numerous fully-grown trees were harvested from other properties owned by Deering. Among them were massive live oaks that were transported to Vizcaya and lifted onto the top of the Garden Mound, where they remain today.
Deering even paid $1,500 to save a large strangler fig from imminent destruction. The tree was relocated, hauled to Vizcaya by barge and planted in the gardens—only to blow down in a thunderstorm some months later.
Vizcaya’s patron also purchased over one hundred Royal Palms from Cuba and brought them to Vizcaya by boat. One remaining palm is a Florida Challenger, the 4th largest Royal Palm. To record their existing locations and sizes and to help maintain their health, we recently began to enter these historic trees in Vizcaya’s plant database.
Nestled among the forest are elaborately maintained parterres and shrub borders that are filled with unusual plants such as the Peach Palm,
Bactris mexicana
; the Giant Elephant Ear,
Alocasia
‘Borneo Giant’; and the humorously named flowering lily –
Crinum
‘Regina’s Disco Lounge.’
The Orchid Collection
Oncidium orchid. Photo by Alejandra Serna.
Mr. Deering loved orchids, had large greenhouses to encourage their bloom for cut flower arrangements and specifically requested that live orchid plants be attached to the trees around the north side of his house.
Orchids still have a prominent presence at Vizcaya, thanks to the
David A. Klein Foundation
, which funds Vizcaya’s orchid program. Greenhouses shelter a collection of over 2,000 plants, and many of those are used for floral displays in the David A. Klein Orchidarium and the Courtyard of the Main House. Vizcaya’s collection includes many Florida natives and warm-growing exotic orchids, some of significant size and rarity like our
Phalaenopsis bulbophyllum
and
Stanhopea
species.
Beauty To Behold
The gallery below represents the many facets of Vizcaya’s unique landscape architecture. The gardens feature a wide variety of living collections, ranging from endangered orchids and water lilies, to historic oak trees and native shrubs.
Learn More
Explore stories about the gardens and Vizcaya’s activities to ensure the resilience and sustainability of our environment.
How to Grow Squash in South Florida: A Simple, Beginner-Friendly Guide
In South Florida, our unique climate gives us the chance to grow squash almost year-round. Whether you're working with a backyard garden or a few pots on your p…
Read More
Inside Vizcaya’s Urban Farm: Cultivating Food, Culture, and Youth Engagement
In 2025, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens was honored to join the Urban Agriculture Resilience Program—an initiative led by the United States Botanic Garden and the A…
Read More
Landscape Architecture Magazine features Vizcaya’s Historic Gardens
June 6, 2024Landscape Architecture MagazineMiami’s Vizcaya Museum and Gardens recovers from design drift in the face of rising seas.When the chief horticulturis…
Read More
Composting Done for You [GIVEAWAY]
Think of composting as nature's own recycling process. It’s a simple yet transformative practice that turns your everyday kitchen scraps and yard waste into nut…
Read More
Free Orchid Care Class: How to Grow, Repot & Mount Orchids at Home
HOW IT WORKS
This online course is delivered through a series of pre-recorded videos that you'll find on this page and on Vizcaya's YouTube channel.
Each of the…
Read More
The Story of Vizcaya’s Hidden Moat
Every castle needs a moat and Vizcaya is no different. This feature of the estate goes largely unnoticed by visitors because of its location below the Piazza. A…
Read More
The Courtyard: Designing Vizcaya’s Indoor Garden
The Glass Canopy: Protecting and Enhancing the CourtyardThe central courtyard of Vizcaya’s Main House boasts a unique and ever-evolving landscape. Over the year…
Read More
The Shepherd & The Shepherdess: Rediscovering Romanticism in Art
Introduction to Romanticism MovementDuring the 18th century, an artistic movement known as Romanticism spread throughout Europe, seeking to evoke an idealized w…
Read More
From Nature to Art: Inspiring Students at Creative Vizcaya 2023
With support from the Janet Traeger Salz Charitable Trust, the second annual event, Creative Vizcaya, occurred in March 2023. Inspired by Vizcaya’s rich histori…
Read More
Gaston Lachaise’s Peacock Columns
Gaston LachaiseLachaise (1882–1935) joined the Vizcaya project in mid-1920 as the formal gardens were nearing completion. A prominent sculptor, he was commissio…
Read More
Skip to content
The Gardens
Vizcaya’s European-inspired gardens are among the most elaborate in the United States. Reminiscent of gardens created in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italy and France, the overall landscape design is conceived as a series of rooms.
The central space is dominated by low hedges, or parterres, in a geometric arrangement. Beyond that are the evocative Secret Garden, the intimate Theater Garden, the playful Maze Garden and the once-watery domain of the Fountain Garden. On either side of this designed landscape, James Deering preserved the native forest.
Facts About The Gardens
The Art and Architecture
Vizcaya’s exuberant gardens are characterized by an abundance of architectural structures and details, elaborate fountains, and antique and commissioned sculptures. The use of sculptures that were already old and of soft and porous coral stone resulted, quite intentionally, in the gardens having a weathered appearance soon after their completion. To further the appearance of age, Deering and
Paul Chalfin
planted numerous mature trees, along with vines and plants that would drape themselves over the garden structures.
The Landscape Architect
Landscape architect
Diego Suarez
referenced many places in the design of Vizcaya’s formal gardens; most are around Florence and Rome. In the outer gardens that no longer exist, Vizcaya’s creators instead looked to the Everglades, North Africa and even Asia for landscape and architectural inspiration.
The Garden Mound
The original plan for the formal gardens included a series of terraces that began at the Main House and ended at a large lagoon. Suarez realized that the light reflecting off the water would be blinding to garden visitors and that the formal gardens would melt into the jungle beyond—hardly a fitting conclusion for such a grandly conceived landscape. He cleverly redesigned the entire formal garden and added the Garden Mound, an artificial hill that blocks the view from the house and creates long perspectives on its sides.
At the Garden Mound and elsewhere, Chalfin embellished Suarez’s design and their combined inventiveness created Vizcaya’s uniquely romantic subtropical gardens.
Support The Preservation Of Vizcaya
Donate online
About The Living Collection
Collection Management
As part of the maintaining Vizcaya's living collection, the oak trees on the Garden Mound are regularity trimmed to be more resilient during storms. Photo by Alejandra Serna.
Vizcaya’s diverse horticultural collections range from 400-year-old trees nestled in endangered subtropical forests to an orchid collection numbering over 2,000 specimens. Our living collections are managed similarly to our art collection—plants are catalogued, researched and conserved.
The Native Forest
Red Stopper Champion Tree at Vizcaya. Photo by Alejandra Serna.
When Vizcaya was built, some of the property was covered in dense subtropical forest, now called rockland hammock. This forest consists of plants and trees that adapted to growing on coral rock. Never a widespread ecosystem in Miami, the native forest was almost entirely razed for development. James Deering saw this occurring and made a conscious decision to preserve the forest, building his mansion next to the water instead.
The forest is now home to many endangered plants, such as The Redberry Stopper,
Eugenia confusa
; Bitterbush,
Picramnia pentandra
; and the Brittle Maidenhair Fern,
Adiantum tenerum
. Some plants found here exist in only one or two other places in the world. Vizcaya’s forest is also home to 8 known national champion trees — the largest of their kind in the United States.
The Mangrove Shoreline
Students explore and help clean up Vizcaya's mangrove shorline during Wild Vizcaya. Photo by David Almeida.
Deering also saved a portion of the once-extensive mangrove forests that lined the shoreline of the property. He recognized that these trees protect the gardens from salt air and wind, and this forest still shelters the gardens today. Vizcaya actively manages our forests to ensure their long-term health; and to help perpetuate these plants, we allow limited seed harvests every year.
Highlights of Original Plantings
Exotic Gardens truck delivering palm tree to Vizcaya. Photo dated November 28, 1921. Photo courtesy of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Archives.
After the land was cleared, Vizcaya’s extensive and elaborate gardens were built, taking almost eight years. During construction, numerous fully-grown trees were harvested from other properties owned by Deering. Among them were massive live oaks that were transported to Vizcaya and lifted onto the top of the Garden Mound, where they remain today.
Deering even paid $1,500 to save a large strangler fig from imminent destruction. The tree was relocated, hauled to Vizcaya by barge and planted in the gardens—only to blow down in a thunderstorm some months later.
Vizcaya’s patron also purchased over one hundred Royal Palms from Cuba and brought them to Vizcaya by boat. One remaining palm is a Florida Challenger, the 4th largest Royal Palm. To record their existing locations and sizes and to help maintain their health, we recently began to enter these historic trees in Vizcaya’s plant database.
Nestled among the forest are elaborately maintained parterres and shrub borders that are filled with unusual plants such as the Peach Palm,
Bactris mexicana
; the Giant Elephant Ear,
Alocasia
‘Borneo Giant’; and the humorously named flowering lily –
Crinum
‘Regina’s Disco Lounge.’
The Orchid Collection
Oncidium orchid. Photo by Alejandra Serna.
Mr. Deering loved orchids, had large greenhouses to encourage their bloom for cut flower arrangements and specifically requested that live orchid plants be attached to the trees around the north side of his house.
Orchids still have a prominent presence at Vizcaya, thanks to the
David A. Klein Foundation
, which funds Vizcaya’s orchid program. Greenhouses shelter a collection of over 2,000 plants, and many of those are used for floral displays in the David A. Klein Orchidarium and the Courtyard of the Main House. Vizcaya’s collection includes many Florida natives and warm-growing exotic orchids, some of significant size and rarity like our
Phalaenopsis bulbophyllum
and
Stanhopea
species.
Beauty To Behold
The gallery below represents the many facets of Vizcaya’s unique landscape architecture. The gardens feature a wide variety of living collections, ranging from endangered orchids and water lilies, to historic oak trees and native shrubs.
Learn More
Explore stories about the gardens and Vizcaya’s activities to ensure the resilience and sustainability of our environment.
How to Grow Squash in South Florida: A Simple, Beginner-Friendly Guide
In South Florida, our unique climate gives us the chance to grow squash almost year-round. Whether you're working with a backyard garden or a few pots on your p…
Read More
Inside Vizcaya’s Urban Farm: Cultivating Food, Culture, and Youth Engagement
In 2025, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens was honored to join the Urban Agriculture Resilience Program—an initiative led by the United States Botanic Garden and the A…
Read More
Landscape Architecture Magazine features Vizcaya’s Historic Gardens
June 6, 2024Landscape Architecture MagazineMiami’s Vizcaya Museum and Gardens recovers from design drift in the face of rising seas.When the chief horticulturis…
Read More
Composting Done for You [GIVEAWAY]
Think of composting as nature's own recycling process. It’s a simple yet transformative practice that turns your everyday kitchen scraps and yard waste into nut…
Read More
Free Orchid Care Class: How to Grow, Repot & Mount Orchids at Home
HOW IT WORKS
This online course is delivered through a series of pre-recorded videos that you'll find on this page and on Vizcaya's YouTube channel.
Each of the…
Read More
The Story of Vizcaya’s Hidden Moat
Every castle needs a moat and Vizcaya is no different. This feature of the estate goes largely unnoticed by visitors because of its location below the Piazza. A…
Read More
The Courtyard: Designing Vizcaya’s Indoor Garden
The Glass Canopy: Protecting and Enhancing the CourtyardThe central courtyard of Vizcaya’s Main House boasts a unique and ever-evolving landscape. Over the year…
Read More
The Shepherd & The Shepherdess: Rediscovering Romanticism in Art
Introduction to Romanticism MovementDuring the 18th century, an artistic movement known as Romanticism spread throughout Europe, seeking to evoke an idealized w…
Read More
From Nature to Art: Inspiring Students at Creative Vizcaya 2023
With support from the Janet Traeger Salz Charitable Trust, the second annual event, Creative Vizcaya, occurred in March 2023. Inspired by Vizcaya’s rich histori…
Read More
Gaston Lachaise’s Peacock Columns
Gaston LachaiseLachaise (1882–1935) joined the Vizcaya project in mid-1920 as the formal gardens were nearing completion. A prominent sculptor, he was commissio…
Read More