Florida’s oldest roadside attraction is 15 feet underground and has flamingos in it

Florida’s oldest roadside attraction still has roots

St. Petersburg has a four-acre botanical garden that sits 15 feet below street level, wrapped in 14-foot walls while traffic rolls past on 4th Street North.

You’d never know it was there until you step through the gate.

More than 50,000 plants grow inside, along with flamingos, rescued parrots, a koi pond, and a tree that changes color as its bark peels away.

This place has been pulling people off the highway since 1936, and it’s still going strong.

A plumber drained a sinkhole and planted a garden

In the early 1900s, a plumber named George Turner Sr. bought about four acres of swampy St. Petersburg land that nobody else wanted. A water-filled sinkhole sat in the middle of it.

Turner used his plumbing knowledge to drain it with a system of clay tiles, leaving behind deep, rich, mucky soil perfect for growing things.

He planted papaya, mango, banana, and guava trees and sold the fruit from a stand at the road. Neighbors started wandering in to walk the grounds, and by the 1930s, the Turners were charging 15 cents for the tour.

Turner’s Sunken Gardens drew 200,000 people a year

Turner’s Sunken Gardens opened as a fenced attraction in 1936, and by the late 1940s it ranked among Florida’s top ten commercial attractions.

At its peak, more than 200,000 people came through the gates each year, pulled in by more than 200 billboards that lined highways across the Southeast.

The Turners brought in their first flamingos in the mid-1950s, which became one of the biggest draws. Beauty pageants and fashion shows made the garden a social destination, not just a stop on a road trip.

St. Pete residents voted to save it from developers

When Disney World and the big theme parks took hold in the 1980s, the old Florida roadside attractions lost their crowds. The Turner family put the gardens up for sale in 1989.

For nearly a decade, no deal worked out. Then in 1998, the city designated Sunken Gardens a protected local historic landmark, and in 1999, St. Petersburg residents voted to approve a one-time property tax increase to fund the city’s purchase.

The city bought it, restored it, and reopened it, keeping the Turner family’s original vision intact.

50,000 plants across more than 500 species

The sunken position does something most gardens can’t replicate.

Surrounded by walls and set below street level, the space traps warmth and humidity, creating a tropical microclimate where plants grow larger than they would anywhere else in Pinellas County. Royal palms stretch close to 100 feet overhead.

Massive bougainvillea cascade over the outer walls. Orchids, water lilies, bromeliads, shrimp plants, and fruit trees fill every corner.

Many of the original plants from the Turner era still grow here, more than a century after George Turner first broke ground.

The bark on this tree peels in a rainbow of colors

One of the most-photographed trees in the garden came from Papua New Guinea.

As the rainbow eucalyptus sheds its bark in strips at different times of year, it exposes layers of green, red, orange, purple, and blue beneath. The trunk looks hand-painted.

Most people slow down when they reach it and then just stand there working out what they’re looking at.

The tree stretches more than 100 feet tall and stands as one of the oldest and most unusual specimens in the entire collection.

The flamingos almost disappeared for good

Chilean flamingos have lived at Sunken Gardens since the mid-1950s.

By 2016, only two birds from that original flock remained, both elderly, and both named George and Lucy.

A volunteer nonprofit called Flamingos Forever raised the money to bring in 20 young Chilean flamingos from the San Antonio Zoo.

The city purchased a nighttime enclosure for the new flock, and the birds now have a pool and a lush habitat of their own.

If you visit on a calm morning, the pink of 20 flamingos against the green of the garden is hard to describe without sounding like a brochure.

Rescued parrots, macaws, and a kookaburra live here too

The birds in the garden enclosures didn’t come from a breeder. Every one of them arrived after their previous owner died or could no longer care for them.

Rescued parrots, macaws, and cockatoos live in well-kept enclosures throughout the grounds. A white umbrella cockatoo named Mindy tends to greet visitors on her own terms.

Walk past the kookaburra when it decides to call and you’ll stop moving for a second, because it sounds like nothing you’ve heard before.

A koi pond, a cactus garden, and waterfalls in four acres

The garden packs a lot into four acres. A traditional Japanese garden with a koi pond pays tribute to St. Petersburg’s sister city, Takamatsu, Japan.

A cactus garden sits nearby, and a butterfly garden planted with native Florida species draws zebra swallowtails and monarchs through much of the year.

Small waterfalls drop over rocks into clear pools at several points along the route. Winding stone paths connect it all, pulling you from shaded canopies into open sunlit clearings and back again.

Sit on the Growing Stone and see what happens

In the center of the original sinkhole, workers found a fossilized limestone rock. It’s still there.

Garden tradition holds that anyone who sits on the Growing Stone walks away with the talent to make things grow. Every new Sunken Gardens employee visits it on their first day.

Whether the stone delivers on that promise is between you and the limestone.

Informational signs scattered throughout the garden fill in the rest of the Turner family story, so the history comes to you as you walk rather than all at once.

A 1926 building and a history center built into the entrance

The garden’s next-door neighbor is a 1926 Sanitary Public Market building designed in Mediterranean Revival style, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Turner family bought it in 1967 and turned it into what they called the World’s Largest Gift Shop, along with a wax museum. Today it holds the garden entrance, a gift shop, and Great Explorations Children’s Museum.

In 2022, the city opened a History Center inside the original 1940 entrance building, with photos, videos, and stories from the Turner era.

Three-fourths of a mile of paths through the whole garden

The paths through Sunken Gardens run about three-fourths of a mile in total. Most of them are paved and wide enough for wheelchairs, walkers, and strollers.

A few stretches have steeper inclines, but the layout gives you alternate routes to reach every section of the garden.

Picnic tables and benches appear at regular intervals, so you can sit and let the plants do their thing for a while. Plan on one to two hours for a full visit, though some people stay longer once they find the flamingos.

Visit Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg, Florida

You’ll find Sunken Gardens at 1825 4th Street North in St. Petersburg’s Historic Old Northeast neighborhood.

The garden is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m., with last admission at 4 p.m. It closes on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. Free parking is available on site.

Check the official website for current admission prices, guided tour schedules, and special events running throughout the year.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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