The tours are only given a few times a month. The rare plants and home are well worth the visit. You will need about three hours to tour the property and gardens. They also have many special events that are always fun and often include delicious food.

The Kampong home and gardens is a lovely, exotic surprise tucked away on nearly eleven lushly landscaped acres in Coconut Grove, with spectacular views of Biscayne Bay. The land originally belonging to some French aristos, was then purchased by a woman doctor who lived and worked there. In 1916, it was purchase for $25,000 by Alexander Graham Bell's daughter, Marian Fairchild, who lived there during winters with her husband, Dr. David Fairchild. As Director of Plant Introductions for the US Department of Agriculture , he collected and introduced over 30,000 plants and their variations from South and Central America, Africa, and Asia, planting many of them in his own garden. He selected rare, beautiful, exotic tropical plants, ranging from flowers, fruits, and the bread nut tree to the baobab, orange champaca, giant ficus, mango, pomelo, bamboo, and curry leaf trees. Kampong also boasts one of the largest salt water mangrove preserves in the area.

The estate was next purchased by Dr. Catherine Sweeney who was a preservationist and botanist. She not only made Kampong beautiful - she introduced landscaping, renovated the Southeast Asian- Spanish influenced home, and stocked it with beautiful art, sculpture, and yellow rosewood details - but ensured its future by registering it on the National Register of Historic Places. Place and eventually donating it to the Pacific Tropical Botanical Gardens.

It is not as easily accessible as most attractions. Kampong is also a research center so a visit requires a bit of planning. It is open Tues-Fri from 10-12 by appointment only. They offer two-hour guided tours on selected Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:30 and reservations are recommended, although four of us just were able to walk in one Wednesday and join the scheduled tour. The tours are given by volunteers who are enthusiastic and passionate about Kampong. The more important thing, however, is less what they have to say than that they enable you to visit and enjoy this beautiful place.

We passed on Fairchild gardens so I can't compare the two. This place is relatively small and is beautifully landscaped and the staff is helpful. You must make an appointment to visit. We did the self guided tour but they have guided tours at 10:30 on Wed and Sat. The "office" is the house that Fairchild lived in. Most of the gardens are trees and shrubs (not flowers) but their is a lily pond with lilies and lotus flowers in it. There are lots of tropical plants from all over the world.

I can honestly say that, although I have lived here for ages, I had never heard of the Kampong and, as I asked my friends and family, they hadn't either. What a beautiful surprise to go visit this Botanical Garden and understand that David Fairchild, the man who traveled the world to bring us plants and fruits that we would have never experienced in the U.S., lived and worked here. Make sure to walk down to the bay and see the view he enjoyed while living here and while planning his many travels for the U.S. dept. of Agriculture. Make reservations and then go enjoy the scenery and the quiet in the midst of the bustling city, and know that you are also supporting local and national history at the same time. It is most enjoyable when visiting it from Oct/Nov through May, because of the heat; although, of course, there are things blooming and growing all year and it is always a quiet respite...