A Resplendent Rainforest Awaits at McKee Botanical Garden

This year’s Jungle Lights, McKee Botanical Garden’s glittering gift to the community, is bigger, brighter, and more exciting than ever before, thanks to the creative minds behind this not-to-be-missed annual event. In anticipation of next year’s centennial in honor of the Garden’s founding, and the 25th anniversary of its restoration and reopening, the past and present have been woven into this year’s theme. Welcome to an Amazon Adventure.

While thousands of lights continue to sparkle and shine on familiar sights of the season, it’s the sounds of the jungle that will captivate and whisk you away on a journey into six of the eight countries in the Amazon rainforest: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela, where macaws can be heard squawking, toucans purring, tree frogs singing, monkeys chattering, flamingos honking, and owls hooting.

It’s another world, and just how founders Waldo Sexton and Arthur McKee envisioned the garden would be a century ago when they sent plant explorers deep into the Amazon to search for, collect, and bring back exotic floral specimens that would be integrated into the tropical Florida hammock. The explorers succeeded, and thanks to well-known landscape architect William Lyman Phillips, the garden blossomed into a botanical wonderland that has been visited by hundreds of thousands of people over the years.

What makes Jungle Lights special? The answer is summed up nicely by Rochelle Wolberg, McKee’s executive director: “These dazzling nights are the only time visitors can experience this unique tropical oasis at night, when they may also capture and share beautiful memories of a rare and heartwarming sensory experience in nature.”

So, since seeing is believing, let’s take a mini tour starting at the entrance, where, just beyond a curved canopy covered with white lights, you’re greeted by a dazzling 30-foot-tall Christmas tree topped with an equally dazzling star.

Everywhere you look, LED lights define winding walkways, illuminate ponds, and outline fanciful figures. Bright orange fish frolic above foliage where iridescent green and purple figures sway back and forth. A larger-than-life blue, teal, and magenta peacock nestles nearby, and a regal reindeer outlined in white lights stands guard over a giant multicolored mushroom.

Then there’s Santa, who, snug in his sleigh—a gift from Riverside Theatre—is chatting happily with children of all ages who are eager to share their Christmas wish lists and have their picture taken with jolly old Saint Nick. Rudolph, his red-nosed sidekick, waits patiently in the Great Reindeer Hall (aka Hall of Giants) for the whistle that signals it’s time to lift off, soar through the sky, and land on rooftops. 

Multiple toot-toots can be heard coming from across the way in the Richardson Education Building, where a large-scale model train winds through picturesque Swiss Alps villages, occasionally signaling a station stop to let miniature passengers clutching tiny suitcases off and on.

Then there’s the eye-popping 15-foot Christmas tree, made of 375 bromeliads and orchids, that welcomes you to the north end of the Royal Palm Grove. Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, you’re treated to a scene that captures the imagination and makes you want to see more.

On special nights, you’ll be treated to the sounds of a 1924 Wurlitzer band organ. With its variety of pipe sounds, percussion, bells, and whistles, you’re transported back in time. On other nights, vocal and musical groups from local schools and churches entertain with sounds of the season, prompting onlookers to hum or sing along. There’s not a frown in sight.

It’s a far cry from the first holiday lights display designed and installed by team McKee 18 years ago. Modest in comparison, it was available to be seen only a few nights in December. Those who heard about it came and cheered. They couldn’t wait to tell their friends and neighbors, and as word spread more people came. It didn’t take long before additional trails and lights appeared. When a newspaper article touting the display popped up, demand grew even further, and team McKee realized it was time to call in the professionals.

Two lighting experts, Teddy Roepke of Tech-Tronics in Fort Myers and Tony Schnur of Elite Christmas Lighting in Vero Beach, came to the rescue. It takes four to six weeks for Roepke’s crew to design soundscapes and bathe the jungle foliage in vibrant colors. According to Schnur, lighting the hardscapes is more straightforward, and his 16-man team is able to transform the garden into a dazzling wonderland in just four days.

Behind the scenes, it takes hundreds of volunteers working alongside staff to bring Jungle Lights to life, and Summer Vaughan, McKee’s garden display artist, appreciates every single one of them. “It really does take a village to create the magic,” she says.

“We started working on this year’s display on January 6, right after we closed down last year’s, and it’s been nonstop ever since; there’s always something that needs to get done. We picked out poinsettias in February, bromeliads in July. The time goes by in a blink.”

Kathleen Carney knows all about the blink. She began volunteering three years ago and has helped out whenever and wherever needed. “I’ve done several things, including managing the line for ‘Visit with Santa.’ I’ll ask people if they want to give me their cell phone so I can take a picture of them with Santa. One night some families from the same neighborhood came—there were kids, parents, grandparents, a whole bunch, and I took pictures of them all. They were so happy they couldn’t stop thanking me. The appreciation shown to the volunteers is wonderful. The garden itself is so magical. Every time I’m there I feel like I’m walking through a box of Crayola crayons.”

Those words are like music to Marion de Vogel’s ears. As Arthur McKee’s granddaughter and an  avid volunteer at his namesake garden, she has been intimately involved with both the planning and execution of this year’s Jungle Lights. No matter how much time and effort it takes, she says, “Above all it’s the laughter of children, the wonder in the visitors’ eyes, and the joy it brings to the community that makes everything worthwhile.”

Her grandfather and Waldo Sexton would agree.