The Vision for the Park

Nestled in the heart of North Florida, WildFlowers is a 270-acre nature park designed to provide space for the arts, education, dance, and a deeper connection with nature.

On August 1, 2025, a small not-for-profit organization of family and friends purchased the WildFlowers property, with the vision of preserving it as a park where people can enjoy its beauty today and future generations can continue to do the same.

What could have been another row of houses, another piece of North Florida paved over, is instead 270 acres of wild possibility. Saved. Protected.

This land deserves to be shared, to be loved, to become a sanctuary.

About 70–75 acres will be carefully shaped into event grounds, built with minimal infrastructure and a deep respect for the land - spaces where music, dancing, and community gatherings will come to life. The remaining nearly 200 acres will be preserved as wild sanctuary, featuring nature trails, native wildflowers, and open spaces protected for wildlife.

The land is rich with ancient live oaks, mysterious cypress domes, sinkhole marshes, and wide-open meadows. Lakeshores teem with wading birds, while frogs call from floodplain swamps. The property tells stories of a century shaped by turpentine, timber, hayfields, and grazing livestock.

Today, we are restoring balance -reviving native plants, reintroducing beneficial fire, and protecting surface waters from excess nutrients. Life is slowly returning for those who take the time to notice: ground-nesting and wading birds, gopher tortoises, snakes, amphibians, and small mammals.

We believe that conservation and creativity belong together - that a healthy landscape feeds a healthy culture. By blending ecological restoration with art, education, and outdoor experiences, we’re creating a place where people of all ages can explore, celebrate, and care for the natural world.

Every trail, performance, and workshop is part of a living classroom.

WildFlowers is a privately-owned park inviting visitors to reconnect with nature, and with themselves. So, come stretch your legs and your senses: hike or run, picnic or paint, birdwatch and botanize, ride horseback or bicycle, fly kites, take photos, meditate, or practice yoga.

A Place for Community and Learning

The park sits one mile south of downtown Melrose, Florida, an unincorporated community with a long history of agriculture, creative arts, entrepreneurship, and lakefront living. A 2.5-mile loop trail winds through five distinct Florida ecosystems and will be open to the public.

On its 270 acres, WildFlowers will host an ever-evolving mix of experiences: nature trails, obstacle courses, campouts, retreats, campfire jams, and festivals of music and dance. Families can gather, kids can run free, teens will find creative hangouts, and multi-generational workshops will teach gardening, beekeeping, woodwork, blacksmithing, archery, and bat-house building. From tea houses to lakeside yoga, from fields of wildflowers to starlit dances, the park is designed to inspire creativity, connection, and joy, shaped by community and shared learning.

At its heart, WildFlowers is an invitation: to build something beautiful and needed in today’s world, with music, nature, and community at its core.

Wildflowers and Conservation

WildFlowers is more than a name - many species of native wildflowers will be actively propagated on-site as a seed source for other land conservation projects in the region.

For the majority of the year, the park will be open to the public for enjoyment of nature.

Once per year, the park will host the WildFlowers Festival of Music & Dance.

This 3-day event features live music and dance performances, workshops in art, music, and dance for all ages, a healing arts garden, an art gallery showcasing local artists, a shared food court, drum circles, campfire jams, and large activity areas for kids and teens.

The festival is not just family-friendly, it’s family-oriented.

Read more about plans for the inaugural festival here The Vision for the Inaugural WildFlowers Festival of Music & Dance

Through educational retreats, family campouts, music festivals, and creative experiences, the park aims to cultivate an atmosphere that feels both timeless and grounded, growing in harmony with the land and those who visit it.

Rooted in the belief that music, nature, and community are powerful forces for connection and renewal, WildFlowers provides a mindful landscape where people can dance under the stars, learn by the fire, and reconnect with each other and the Earth.