Visit Sarasota Jungle Gardens in Sarasota, Florida

Sarasota Jungle Gardens
3701 Bay Shore Road
Sarasota, FL 34234
Phone: 941-355-5305
Toll Free: 877-861-6547

I've always loved Sarasota Jungle Gardens which is located in Sarasota, Florida. It's mostly because of the animals, and even though the plants and flowers are beautiful, I'm an animal lover, so the plants and flowers tend to take a back seat.

But even if the plants and flowers take a back seat for me, they definitely don't take one at the gardens. This lush tropical jungle is built on 10 acres of land that's located in Sarasota, Florida, between U.S. 41 and Bayshore Road.

You might think that this lush tropical jungle has always been here. Maybe a hold-over from prehistoric times. But the gardens got its' start in the early 1930's, when a man by the name of David Breed Lindsay purchased the swampy banana grove, because he wanted to turn it into a botanical garden.

Well, with the help of his friend Pearson Conrad, who owned a nursery next to the swampy land, Lindsay was able to turn his swamp into a lush tropical paradise - filled with thousands of tropical plants, trees and flowers imported from all the over the world. Today, these plants and flowers can be found growing through out the garden in areas like, the Gardens of Christ, the open lagoons, and Tiki Garden.

It's funny how the gardens started out as private property and ended up being opened to the public in 1936, when Lindsay and Conrad notice how many people were wandering around their private jungle. And even thought the gardens weren't meant to become a tourist attraction, that's exactly what happened! It started when the two men decided to charge 10 cents for the children and 35 cents for the adults. This was the beginning of Sarasota Jungle Gardens.

People have been coming to visit the gardens for years, but most don't realize that hundreds of the animals living there came from owners who could no longer take care of them, or they had been abused or their owners died leaving them alone.