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The Exotic Rainforest
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South Walk 


Our Exotic Rainforest has three walkways which take you on a walkl around the pond.  The main walk, which you see on the home page of this site leads from our glass kitchen door to the back entrance of the atrium.  At the end of that walk a right turn takes you to the South Walk.  Each walk is not long since the entire atrium is 24 feet by 24 feet.  Iif you take your time there is plenty to see along your way. 

The majority of the Exotic Rainforest collection is made up of members of the plant family Araceae.  Araceae are commonly known as aroids and include approximately 3300 species in 116 genera.  Aroid genera include close to 1000 species of Anthurium, another 1000 species of Philodendron as well as Alocasia, Colocasia, Amorphophallus, Spathiphyllum, Caladium and others.

On the right of the south walk can be found the back of the waterfall which is not visible in this view.  The 2000 gallon pond is immediately to the right of the walk behind a very large tree fern.  If you look closely at the photo on the right you can just see the park bench on the opposite side of the pond.

Look above your head as you walk you'll see many of our larger aroid species hanging in baskets with long root systems hanging in the air.  We grow them this way since the majority don't live in the soil but instead grow in the rain forest canopy on the branches of a tree.  The peak of our "rain forest" is almost 5 meters (16 feet 4 inches).

From the very beginning our goal has been to make the Exotic Rainforest look and feel as close as possible to a real South American rain forest.

 



Want to see how we built our epiphytic tree? Click the photo.