The Silver Seas, Fairchild Garden and the Pot of Gold

 

Rose and I were in Miami in late February. It had been 20 years since we’d last visited the Magic City. On the drive to nearby Key Biscayne, and the Silver Seas Resort, we were amazed to see dozens of new, architecturally interesting high-rise buildings downtown that hadn’t existed in 2005. We kept hearing about a pot of gold in the South Florida tropics. At least a dozen buildings five-hundred feet, or higher, were under construction last year. The weather was terrific. The climate prediction not so much.

Our friends Mac Reid and Tay Breene told us about the Silvers Sea Resort. They’ve stayed there several times since the 1990s. The Silver Seas is a precious relic built in the late 1950s, in the fashion of motor courts prominent in the last mid-century. Silver Seas was one of the first beach motels on Key Biscayne. (It originated as the Silver Seas Motel and was rebranded later as a resort.

Mac and Tay’s son, and his family, live in Coconut Grove. We met Taylor, his wife, Danielle Malluche, and their two kids at the nearby Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Penelope was dressed like a garden fairy. Pierce was King for the Day. It was his 10^th birthday.  

The Fairchild Tropical and Botanic Garden is not new to me

 I have visited Fairchild several times over the last forty years, admiring palms, cycads, orchids, a big baobab, and kapok trees with fluffy seed heads the size of softballs. Each visit is better than the last.

A fun way to see the Fairchild, or any garden, is to allow children to be the leaders.

We went on a leprechaun lucky adventure. St. Patrick’s Day was coming up. And Fairchild, like so many arboreta and public gardens, is seizing opportunities to pull kids away from mind-numbing and emotionally draining hours on screens every day.

You will find hidden magic outdoors and possibly a pot of gold

Grownups followed dozens of happy kids as they crisscrossed the garden, following the legend of the leprechaun who left a trail of clues to follow in search for his hidden pot of gold. Fairchild’s treasure hunt promotion was evidently successful.

Along the way, the kids found stars, a toy rabbit with footprints, and a unicorn until the final stop…You’ve followed luck and found your way, but one last treasure calls today. With shades that blend both soft and bold, a rainbow stands with stories told. Look behind where hues entwine, a hidden treasure is yours to find…Ta da! The rainbow eucalyptus and a pot of chocolate gold coins.

David Fairchild was raised on the Kansas Great Plains. No one needed to drag the boy outside. He wandered through his “…neighbors’ rows of apples, their names no more difficult to remember than [his] classmates.” And, he filled his hat with grapes as he walked, “spitting the seeds in deference to the botanical cycle of rebirth.”

Fairchild’s curiosity, intuition, passion, and good luck led to a remarkable career as an influential botanist and plant collector for the Smithsonian and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

I read a wonderful book about David Fairchild while in Miami 

The book is called The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats. (Has anyone bought the movie rights to Daniel Stone’s book? Bradley Cooper should play Fairchild, and Gary Oldman would fit the bill for Fairchild’s benefactor and traveling sidekick,  Barbour Lathrop. Foodies and gardeners alike would love the movie.)

Thanks to David Fairchild and the eccentric Barbour Lathrop for collecting citrons from Corsica, pomegranates in Malta, hops in Germany, red seedless grapes in Italy, kale in Croatia, dates in Bagdad, nectarines in Afghanistan, papayas in Sri Lanka, soybeans in Indonesia, mangoes in Vietnam, peaches in Hong Kong, avocados in Chile, and even for brokering Washington’s iconic cherry trees with the Japanese.

Fairchild had a beguiling manner

During a career that spanned approximately 37 years from the late 1890s to the mid-1920s, most of the seeds, cuttings, and plants that he sent back to Washington were found by simply asking: “What’s good to eat around here?”  (If need be, he would steal seeds or cuttings. A rather common, historic practice. Who’s going to miss them anyway?)

He collected tens of thousands of species and heirloom varieties that transformed American agriculture and gardens These were shipped back on slow boats to the U.S. for trials. Many were eventually distributed by the USDA to farmers around the country, who were eager for promising new crops that could combat the never-ending cycle of boom-and-bust commodity price fluctuations.

Inevitably some plants were invasive. “For decades, two foreign mangroves flourished, showcasing the flowery beauty of exotic mangroves,” Jenny Staleovich wrote for the Miami Herald. “But at some point, something bad happened. They escaped.”

I was on a mission

Rose and I returned to the Fairchild again a few days after the successful treasure hunt. I wore a tropical avocado shirt that I hoped would draw attention to those in-the-know at Fairchild.  The food explorer collected avocado in Chile in 1889. The fruit is a significant agricultural crop in California but there’s plenty of competition now south of the border.

Yesterday, the Wall-Street Journal reported that Americans eat nine pounds of avocados compared to less than a pound in the 1970s.

“Every now and then, you come across a product that makes you question how you could have possibly existed without it. It’s happened with many of the dazzling creations that have swept the nation in the 21^stcentury, like Facebook and the iPhone—and the avocado.” WSJ added that 12% are American grown. 80% come from Mexico.

Don’t be surprised if the price of your avocado toast goes up if Mexico gets slapped with a tariff. 

Walking along the path, near the conservatory…

 I was especially curious about mangosteen, a tropical fruit that Fairchild had collected in 1903 in Indonesia, but I wondered why it didn’t make the grade despite the plant hunter’s enthusiasm.

Mangosteen was the swashbuckling plant collector’s favorite tropical fruit. Fairchild, with missionary zeal, tried to convince the doubters: “The fruit has a beautiful white fruit pulp, more delicate than a plum, and a flavor that is indescribably delicate and delicious.” Some like. And some don’t

Unfortunately, there was no fruit on the Fairchild Conservatory tree, but there was a little excitement about my avocado shirt. One of the gardeners complimented the shirt with a thumbs up as he passed by in an electric cart. I said I was honoring Fairchild. “That’s cool,” he yelled back.

Later, another employee complimented me on the shirt. He was, coincidentally, the Fairchild Director. I mentioned that the mangosteen, although never a U.S commercial success, was Fairchild’s favorite fruit. Dr. Carl E. Lewis smiled knowingly and told me in the early years of the gardens, David Fairchild held an annual mangosteen party with fruit delivered from the Bahamas.

The mangosteen does not fall far from the tree

I tracked down Chuck Hubbuch last week. I had not seen the talented horticulturist since he left Louisville for Fairchild in 1983. He eventually assumed the position of Director of Collections that allowed him to study and collect tropical plants in twenty-five countries. Chuck is listed on Fairchild’s website along with the garden’s other notable plant explorers. He is retired now (sort of) and volunteers as the manager of the South Carolina Native Plant Society’s upstate nursery.

Chuck’s father, Clarence “Buddy” Hubbuch, was Bernheim Forest and Arboretum’s horticulturist from 1962-1995. Buddy was an important teacher and role model for me, Ben Cecil, Steve Foltz, Mike Hayman, Bob Hill and many others whose lives continue to be possessed by plants and gardens.

I asked Chuck why the Fairchild garden’s mangosteen tree was in a conservatory and not outdoors. There were two reasons. The tropical fruit tree is not tolerant of freezing temperatures. (Chuck was at Fairchild when temperatures once dipped down to the high twenties). And mangosteen is an acidic-loving species. South Florida sits on a bedrock of Miami oolite marine-imestone containing fossils of coral and mollusks

A day in the life

Near the end of our stay, I met  the friendly Alejandro Rodriguez,  owner of the Silver Seas Resort. He was walking around, checking on his guests to be sure they were happy.  

Rodriguez’s family bought the 56-room one story complex that sits adjacent to the beach on close to four acres in 1991. The Silver Seas is not what you’d think of in terms of modern resorts. The White Lotus it is not. Our room was clean, comfortable, included a kitchenette, and was priced (for Miami) at a reasonable $200 per night. The property has ¾ of an acre of park-like plantings, including at least a half dozen palm species. There were a pair of seagrapes 80’ tall, hedges of beach cabbages, clumps of Moses in the cradle, red gingers, and multi–colored crotons. Nothing fancy or rare, but the garden was peaceful and quiet. A resident iguana wandered around.

We enjoyed our stay 

The Silver Seas sits squeezed between two large, new condo developments. The Ritz Carlton is three doors down the beach.

Somehow, I missed the handwriting on the wall.

Alejandro told us the Silver Seas was sold last fall and will be closed this spring.

One of Key Biscayne’s first beachfront resorts, so charming and modest, will become a memory. A $600 million dollar condominium development will take its place.

It intrigues me that there is so much new development going on in Miami’s fast lane. Louisville moves at a much slower pace. Florida residents have state income tax advantages. And foreigners park their money here on safer, if not higher, ground. None of this would happen without blue skies and the silver seas, but the silver seas are rising.

The roll of the dice

I applaud businesses that stick their necks out, but it’s no secret that the ocean is rising.  Or maybe not? President Trump thinks climate change is a hoax; Florida Governor DeSantis is skeptical. Miami leaders are reading different tea leaves. They have seen periodic flooding and are confronting the threat of rising sea water.

Gardeners play the odds every day.

Chuck Hubbuch was encouraging about the flavor of mangosteen

My chances of growing a mangosteen are nil, but Hubbuch’s taste verdict was what I wanted to hear.

“To me, mangosteen is a juicy fruit with a neutral sweet-tart flavor with no distinctive odd undertones or after taste. It is very easy to enjoy, and I cannot imagine anyone finding it unpleasant,” Chuck told me.

I am on the hunt for mangosteen fruit in Louisville’s Asian markets.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in the Little Prince, warned readers about the African baobab taking over the planet. I am a skeptic. The Fairchild’s majestic and well-behaved baobab was planted in 1939, a year after the gardens were opened. I have a one-year-old seedling, not much larger than a bristle on a broom.

There is catching up to do.

The leprechaun’s first clue on the Fairchild Treasure Hunt was Luck is rare, but here it thrives, where two paths meet. Look behind, among the green, a special leaf waits to be seen…

There, in front of Pierce and Penelope, was a 4-leaf clover!

It’s good peace of mind to wish upon a star.