Cacao tree at Garfield Park is loaded with pods filled with chocolate beans. (C) Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
If you’re looking for a short trek to another land, consider a visit to the Garfield Park Conservatory on Indianapolis’ southside.
Along with frogs, finches and koi, you find an exotic blend of tropical plants that literally make you feel like you’ve escaped our winter weather for a brief stint in another climate.
Powder puff tree is just one of the many tropical plants at Garfield Park in Indianapolis. (C) Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
The huge leaves of bird of paradise or crane plants (Strelitzia reginae) scrape the glass ceiling of the conservatory. Powder puff plants (Calliandra) punctuate the setting with reddish pink flowers that live up to their name.
In the orangery, orange and lemon trees bloom and set fruit. Nearby is a huge jade plant in full bloom.
More than 800 orchids — many of them sent from the greenhouses adjacent to the Irwin Home and Gardens when it closed last year in Columbus, Ind., — add color and fragrance throughout the conservatory.
Banana trees (Musa) bloom and fruit and soon the tropical passion flower’s (Passiflora) delicate purple-blue blooms will twine over the arbor.
You’ll notice the shaving brush tree (Bombax ellipticum) with its arched limb that’s so large it needs to be supported with a block of wood to keep the plant from splitting.
There also are shrimp plants (Justicia brandegeana), several gingers, crotons (Croton), impatiens, ferns and palms and many other tropicals.
Cacao pods turn red, then brown with ripe. (C) Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
But perhaps the real show is the cacao tree, which is loaded with golden pods that hold chocolate beans. As the pods ripen, they turn red, then brown. At better than 10-feet tall, this is one of the largest chocolate trees in the state, delighting adults and children alike. It is so spectacular that Endangered Species Chocolate provides support for educational signage.
Admission to the conservatory, 2505 Conservatory Drive, is only $1. Only five minutes from Downtown, it is open 10 a.m. to 5 pm. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Here’s a map.
I most definitely need a trip to the conservatory. I am going to fit it into this weekend’s schedule, I am!