At&T has been giving me fits this week with Internet broadband connections failing all the time. Apparently there has been a multi state failure, perhaps a foretaste of what is to come as our Post Peak Oil civilization collapses...or just another corporate screw up. In any event my connection to the outside world is tenuous from my home so I am re-posting this essay. In an attempt to make it seem more current I should note the Citizen is reporting the city may be buying Nancy's Secret Garden as the founder is finding it harder and harder to keep it operating. That's the good news, my inability to get online is driving me crazy but hey, it's just part of the pattern of my life at the moment. At least my wife and my dog still love me. And my camera works so pictures will follow when AT&T lets me back online...
I first published this essay in March, by request, and I have decided to post it again in light of widespread notice that the Secret Garden my be forced to close soon. Apparently the owner, who has kept it going largely with her own money and all her time, wants to hand over responsibility to a not-for-profit, (The Mana Project) to keep the place open, as she goes into well deserved retirement, but there is a little matter of a $160,000 shortfall and the appeal has gone out for donations. Google "Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden" and for more information, though I have to confess it's not laid out very clearly on their website, in my opinion. They need to raise the money before October or the garden may close. Alternatively just enjoy these pictures a second time around!
Key West is not a town one can keep a secret in very easily, and by now I would venture a guess that just about everyone and her brother knows there's a profusion of greenery open to public inspection in the very heart of the city.
Free School Lane is not such a weird a name for an alley in a city that boasts innumerable little paths and tracks all over town, Nassau, Love, Gruntbone, Poorhouse, to name but a few. I've thought about photographing them for an essay but it's overwhelming thinking about how many little lanes there are all over the city. A reader of this blog wanted to know what is happening with Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden, and after my brief inspection yesterday I can report, not a lot.
Things are growing, the collection of parrots is extremely loud in their cages, the sunlight is still quite dappled on the huge tree trunks and the enormous dinner plates of green leaves.
Free School Lane lies off Simonton Street, the artery that parallels infamous Duval Street. There are fewer shops on Simonton, and there is more shade. Fewer traffic lights than Duval and much less traffic making it easier to get from Simonton beach to the north to United street to the south if one needs to get across old town in a hurry.
Free School Lane is marked on the cement street light post, halfway between Southard and Fleming Streets, which are in turn the major old town arteries leading onto and off Duval Street. 
And there is ample parking...designated for motorcycles and scooters, inclusing Bonnevilles. 
The Secret Garden is a desireable commodity just at the moment, a refreshment tucked away and available for those that want to stay within walking distance of the bars of Duval, Key West's other refreshment.
What strikes me about places like this is, aside from the care lavished on the plants that I, a failed botanist with a memory like a sieve, could not hope to name, is how much I value these small corners of extravagant exuberance.
Living in the Keys I take no space for granted, I cannot allow myself to overlook any object of interest.Not only is there too little land to do that, everything in a market as overpriced as this, is by its very nature transient. 
A guesthouse next door to the garden, a modest white wood home was for sale in the paper for one point three million dollars on my visit to the garden in March of this year, when I originally published this essay.
Nancy Forrester is growing older like the rest of us; how long will it last, this privilege of walking these downtown paths surrounded by greenery and nothing else? Each visit is, in addition to refreshment, a small statement of defiance against the forces of change, of "improvement," of destruction in the name of maximum return on investment.
$10, charged on the rather old fashioned "honor system" seems a small price to pay to wander in peace for a while. Two loud beers not three blocks away. Your choice, for now.
16 comments:
Thank you for allowing me another trip to Nancy's Secret garden...
You're welcome. Hope it helps though I wish I were more aware of what I was photographing when it comes to plants and stuff. It's been hotter than Hades here too lately so it was a respite to lurk there a while.
I've passed that garden many times but never ventured in. I'll have to rectify that in June.
June is a fine month in Key West, which must be why I take my vaction then. So I can be home in time for hurricane season...
Thanks for the stroll in the not so secret garden. Key West really does have a special blend of characters and gardens and it was nice of you to take us there again.
On my lone trip to Key West a few summers ago, I was able to spend some time with Nancy, chatting to get a bit of information about and insight into her Secret Garden for an article I hoped to write. As much as I was awed by its splendor and the sweat she puts into the upkeep, I came away with a sense of sadness. I got the impression that the message she has been trying to convey through preserving this parcel of land isn't making it to enough caring ears. I still like to think, in the opinion of a midwesterner who longs for more time in warmer climes, that Nancy's Secret Garden is a symbol of what is right in Key West.
It has long been my opinion that the Keys generally have sold their heritage to the lowest bidder. Were it otherwise I don't doubt I wouldn't be living here. Nonetheless its time the attitude changed. Population is declining yet preservation of the valuable remains an abysmally low priority. Joy and saddness hand in hand, unfortunately.
Conch.... I visited the secret garden website as you had advised and I agree that it is a bit unclear. Sad to think that a $160,000 short fall may mean the demise of this little time machine tucked away just minutes from purveyors of "I'm not as think as you drunk I am" t-shirts and the like... Ironically, there are persons that spend that amount in fuel and other provisions just to steam thier megayachts around and into Key West for a season... Or to landscape the summer home a block or two away from the little White House... And I surmise that 160K is just about what it costs to keep Brittney Spears hydrated(or just high) on a concert leg... sad... I had gotten my oldest son (8 years old) into the plight of the Australian Pines, and now it appears that it's time to fill him in on another worthy cause, spark up the lemonade stand that he is fond of and contribute the best we can... it takes a village, right?
Because of your blog I visited Nancy's beautiful gardens in February. Thank you for the valuable service you provide for those of us who don't want to spend all of our time in Sloppy Joe's, and would prefer to explore parts of Key West that many don't know exist.
Conch, the quality of your Internet service is merely the result of most Americans not knowing that it's so much faster, more reliable and (most of all) cheaper everywhere else in the industrialized world. But this is, after all, the nation of 12-flashers...
__Orin
Scootin' Old Skool
I was just saying the other day how I need to get back down to the Keys.
Thanks for posting about this little gem. I'm going to make sure I visit it when I'm down in July. Ive always loved gardening and cant wait to see whats teasures are there. I'll be sure to bring the camera.
Mr Conchscooter:
You have caught the attention of the Government watchdogs. Your idealogized ramblings make too much sense and they wanted to shut you up. Now they couldn't just pull your wires, or pulled the power to your home, so they have pulled the plug on all of the internet from a few other states as a camouflage to shut you down, so you wouldn't suspect anything
bob
Wet Coast Scootin
Dear Conch:
God bless you for your never-ending crusade to preserve the integrity of the Key West lifestyle. I can only hope that the Secret Garden is still there, open and free (or as free as anything is for $10) when I come for my visit, on my motorcycle, in the fall. It is a comfort to me, in my declining years, to know that you are the Aragon of Key West, patroling its outlying mangroves, guarding its verdent by-ways, and haunting the side streets known only to shadows during the day and intrigue at night.
Toil on, noble warrior. Were it not for the fact that you carry neither a pooper scooper nor a radio-active doody box, you'd be without fault.
By the way, you can get basic cable for about the price of two dinners in those trendy Key West restaurants, and have the advantage of watching relationship-building programs, like Sparticus:Blood and Sand, and reliable computer service.
I'm just trying to be helpful.
Fondesy regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
I expect to be deported soon to BC for reducation on the ills of socialism.
riepe_ I always carry a plastic bag but i do not follow Cheyenne who is shy about her shitting, deep into the undergorwth where she usually goes to take a dump. If i can't step in it I am not worrying about it. Tell Gregory Peck to bite you.
PPS my Canon SX100 takes much nicer pictures than the Nikon coolpix I used back in the bad old days.
Some of these pictures look photshopped (horrors! I never do that).
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