Mounts Botanical Garden

This is a wonderful botanical garden. Very well kept up. Not too big, easy to wander around and wheelchair accessible. We went when they had the Lego sculptures and it was fantastic. All the people there are so nice. Someone posted it is a donation to enter. I don’t think they do donations to enter, we paid $ 10pp and it was not a donation. Definitely recommend it is worth it.

Very pretty. You wouldn’t expect this little gem in such an odd place, but was definitely worth it. Small garden, but full of beautiful plants, flowers and probably my favorite of all, the vegetable garden.

Visited one day while playing Ingress. There is a portal hack mission within the garden. Brought my boyfriend along with me and we had a pretty nice time. We went mid afternoon and even with all the foliage it was too hot to enjoy the garden to its fullest extent. The help desk was very polite in welcoming us. They don’t not charge for entry but donations are welcomed. I would love to return another day with cooler weather to adventure through the gardens one more time.

Incredible beauty and well kept tropical lushness! Often overlooked as a destination !!

Update: The LEGO sculpture exhibit going on through February is awesome!!!
Came here recently for the Tropical Fruit Festival, but as always, I am amazed that there’s always something new to see. The staff (and volunteers) are knowledgeable with all my questions. I visit to get ideas for my garden, but worth a trip just to take a stroll in this garden oasis. Gift shop and nursery shop on premises.

One of the most beautiful environments to photograph. Absolutely a perfect place to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Very beautiful place to visit to see Florida nature. They have many different kind of trees and flowers. It’s a very peaceful place to have a stroll with your loved ones. My husband and I had a nice time checking out their herb garden, cactus garden and butterfly garden.

This place is gorgeous and free. I highly recommend a visit if you are in west palm beach. Picturesque landscaping and scenery.

I didn’t get a chance to really look around the grounds but I hope to come back. I am reviewing it solely on the guild plant sale and the bookstore and the people who work or volunteer there which were all fabulous. I have had an extremely hard time finding 1) rare herbs 2) books about weeds and other wild plants 3) books about South Florida gardening 4) people really knowledgeable about gardening. Yeah, there are nurseries and garden centers everywhere, but the really rare herbs or native plants, they are truly harder to find. Yeah, some people have basic knowledge of gardening. However, as one revered local gardener said, he has only been doing this a couple of years and people look up to him as an expert. Exactly, because there are very few real experts in the area. Okay, there are experts by South Florida standards, but go somewhere like Austin, and the localized knowledge pails in comparison. However, the guild plant sale, though small, had an amazing variety of rare herbs and native plants. The staff gardener was EXTREMELY knowledgeable. He gave me so much information. I probably could have asked him questions for hours, okay maybe I did. These beautifully healthy plants were very reasonably priced on top of this. And, I finally got the famous everglade tomato plant which I have been hearing about but not finding for a long time.
The bookstore, though small, was a wealth of helpful book titles, which are surprisingly hard to find all in one place. I would have taken many of the titles if it weren’t for the multiplicative cost. Gardening books, gardening in Florida books, Florida weed identification, etc. I picked out a helpful book on identification of weeds.
Lastly, I have to say that every step of the way, the staff and volunteers went above and beyond to make sure I knew where to go and to offer helpful information.
I hope to come back and relate more.

This place is amazing and for a small donation you can wander around and enjoy so many different gardens. Bring the kids and bring your camera for an awesome/​beautiful photo shoot. Pack a lunch and enjoy a serene picnic on the grounds; they have benches and picnic tables at different locations throughout the grounds.
Visit and visit often to enjoy the seasonal changes in the garden.
Trails are mostly paved but you can stray and wander. All the volunteers there are awesome, some may even give you cuttings to root at home if you ask.
They operate a small nursery in the back with awesome pricing and a lot of interesting herbs and butterfly attractants.
They also host many events throughout the year, the fall plant sale in November is my absolute favorite.

So this super awesome place is tucked away just across the street from the PBI Airport. I had no idea it was even located here! I came here with a group of Girl Scouts for a tour and I was taken back by the beauty and by how far this land sprawls. Our tour guide was super cool, a master gardener and she volunteers her time!!! I think we paid $ 8 per person however if you do not do a tour they ask for a $ 5 donation when you walk in. There is a garden for everyone and it is just awesome. Most of the plants are marked give a brief description underneath. While we were there volunteers were there weeding and trimming. I simply cannot put into words how beautiful this garden is! I will most definitely return with the family maybe for a fun picnic or something!

For the location (urban) and price (donation) this is a brilliant location. Stumbled upon it exploring the area took a late afternoon stroll… some areas under upkeep construction by could still access everything. Obviously the airport keeps this from being one of the best botanicals I’ve ever seen, but with mass urbanization you can’t hold that against the garden itself! A must see, lovely afternoon stop in WPB.

A beautiful botanical garden that only requests a suggested $ 5 donation? Yes, please! Does it get any better than that??! Mounts Botanical Garden occupies 14 acres and is Palm Beach County’s oldest and largest public garden with over 2,000 species of tropical and subtropical plants from six continents, including plants native to Florida, exotic trees, tropical fruit, herbs, citrus, palms and more palms. It is named in honor of Cooperative Extension Agent Marvin «Red» Mounts, who served for 40 years. A headstone can be found on a section of the park. Currently, the botanical garden displays tropical and subtropical plants from around the world, including native species and palms.
There are some beautiful, exotic plants and trees, such as the jackfruit tree, tobacco plants, a lovely rose garden, and even an edible garden. Most plants and trees are labeled, but not all of them are. On par with a larger park like Fairchild Tropical Gardens, like its counterpart, it also boasts a section full of cacti, including flowering cacti. I was able to observe some recognizable species, while at the same time, being exposed to cacti I had never seen before. Further on in the garden, there is a wooden bridge that traverses a lake and beautiful flowers lining the bridge. In addition to all these flowers and trees, there is also an edible garden (obviously, contains things that can be eaten), such as broccoli, cauliflower, fruit trees, lettuces, and more but no, you’re not allowed to touch or eat anything from the grounds, so don’t get too excited and try keeping your appetite in check! As if that weren’t enough, they even have a maze garden! Lots of fun, especially for kids, trying to find a way out without any hedges blocking the path.
You can easily spend hours here, as I did. I agree with a previous reviewer, Ian S., that the park is well-​maintained and quite big. In fact, there was a gardener there pruning and adding mulch while I was there. Did you know it’s actually maintained by volunteers? By the way, folks, it’s meant to be a lush, natural tropical garden, not some prim and proper neatly pruned place with bushes cut in the shape of Mickey Mouse (go to DisneyWorld if you want to see that!). It’s not as big as Fairchild perhaps, that is true, but it’s still a decent size, and with flowers and plants on pretty much every corner of land, you are bound to see some plants you really like. Did I mention the unbeatable by-​donation admission cost?
There is a gift shop on site, though it’s pretty mediocre (they only sell books pretty much, no jewelry, umbrellas, posters, paintings or t-​shirts, which I was hoping to see), there are also monthly special events, including plant sales and educational lectures on gardening, as well as guided tours that you can arrange in advance. A mother’s day event is going to be held here, for locals who may be interested, or tourists that plan to be in town on that date. They also hold weddings. They are open Monday-​Saturday from 8:30 a.m. — 4:00 p.m. and on Sunday from Noon — 4 p.m. Membership is also available, though since their site is currently down, I am unable to report on its price.
As others have mentioned, the only real nuisance is the sound of the planes flying overhead, reminding you that you’re not really away from civilization, as Mounts is located across from a small local airport. Still, it’s a small price to pay for practically a free garden stroll (Fairchild by comparison is $ 25). So go ahead, relax, tune out the airplanes, focus on this beautiful slice of nature away from shopping plazas and malls, and enjoy yourself while not breaking the bank.

Nice visit. Suggested $ 5 per person entry fee is completely voluntary. Some if the planted areas could use a little more upkeep but the variety of things to see definitely outweighs that.

Love this place! We don’t live too far away from Mounts yet we don’t visit that often. The scenery is varied and beautiful. Many of the plants and trees have placards that describe what they are and other interesting information about the vegetation. The place does look a little run down. My son and I went to a few Saturday morning workdays to pull weeds, rake the gardens, etc. My husband and I took the moonlight stroll a few Decembers ago but they haven’t held another moonlight stroll since the. It is just as beautiful there at night as it is in the day time. The atmosphere is peaceful and relaxed. We will not wait so long for another visit!

Not sure why some people are saying it’s small… we thought it was pretty big. Yes, it’s by the airport. we were there for about an hour and only about four planes flew over us… so yes when that happens it’s a bit loud, but this place is beautiful.
It has a nice small parking lot, and when you walk through the gate to the gardens, there is a box that you can put $ 5 in if you’d like, but no ones there to pressure you to do that…
It seems very well maintained, so not sure why some people said it wasn’t. Once again, we thought it was beautiful and well worth the trip.

The only possible reason to give this place less than 5 stars is that from time to time planes fly overhead and remind us that we aren’t really in paradise. This place is gorgeous and fun. There are hundreds of great spots for photos. There is even a fruit and vegetable garden that manages to be both beautiful and fascinating. Just as great as the Japanese gardens in the other side of town.

A tiny botanical garden in West Palm Beach. At one point, it seems a bit out of place in such an urban environment, but the impressive foliage print bridge, various herb and veggie gardens (some were evolving and one was recently renovated) and interesting garden settings make it interesting. Perhaps it was made all the neater because I had a semi-​guided tour with a group of horticulturists who noticed every unusual plant and who had cute stories about each one. Really loved the old cypress trees and the odd containers in the garden.
We noticed the planes but you can’t stop so-​called progress. There are several schools that utilize the gardens both for FFA and tours. Several community gardening groups work out of the gardens too. Also meeting space is available in the Clayton E Hutchinson Building at the back of the gardens. As a bonus you may tour the gardens during meeting breaks. We used Heavenly Hams for the lunch caterer. A convenient meeting spot in a lovely urban garden.

First of all, we went to Mounts on a grey if not rainy day at the end of January so it probably wasn’t as lush as it normally could have been. After we drove past the place and turned around to finally find a parking spot (signage isn’t great) we parked and payed our meager $ 5 donation each, the grounds aren’t all that well kept… seems like somebody forgot to mow this week and do a bit of weeding… but all in all it was pretty interesting, all of the flora and fauna our well labeled and we certainly saw stuff we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Unfortunately they had removed the herb garden to put something else that has a fountain in its place… but it seemed like they started this renovation about a year ago and forgot to finish it. The vegetable garden exhibit was cool as was the pond and maze.
It appeared as though they had at least one school program happening which I think is fantastic and is a great use of the facility.
Mounts Botanical is a great place to spend an afternoon walking around and is cheap entertainment… also an added bonus is checking out all of the air traffic leaving PBI… that would help keep the young kids interested!

West Palm Beach’s best kept secret. The gardens have been trough some rough times, but most areas are now up to date, and the new bridge is just spectacular. Always a great inspiration for the garden enthousiast.
Too bad the aircraft flying over are such a nuisance.