CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami-Dade County is home to more than 5,000 species of plants, trees and flowers — and a vision to transform all of South Florida into a garden.
Carl Lewis has found his paradise. The garden's director, a specialist in tropical plants, said the job is everything he ever dreamed of.
WATCH BELOW: Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden - South Florida's tropical oasis
"I came from upstate New York, and it was January, so once I got here, I never wanted to leave," Lewis said.
"I'm a specialist in tropical plants, so you could never imagine a better place to work than a rainforest and other spectacular collections of tropical plants," Lewis said.
Lewis said his fascination with tropical botany began long before he imagined he'd one day lead one of the most biodiverse botanical gardens in South Florida.
"I became fascinated with tropical botany — never connecting that with the possibility that one day I might work in this botanical garden," Lewis said.
At the heart of Fairchild is a 2.5-acre rainforest that Lewis said stands apart from anything else in the region.
"What is special here is we have more biodiversity within our 2.5-acre rainforest than in any other patch of similar size in South Florida," Lewis said.
Plants that typically can't handle Miami's heat thrive in this cooler environment, thanks to an innovative cooling system.
"The high-pressure fog — that's ultra-purified water that we're using at high pressure — so it really creates this cloud forest environment. It's not mist — it's actually a cloud," Lewis said.
The garden's design also uses natural strategies to manage the South Florida heat.
"What you want to do is have your high temperature way above where people are, so having a tall canopy with multiple palms can actually be a very effective cooling strategy," Lewis said.
In recent years, Fairchild launched the Million Orchids Project to replenish orchids lost to development.
"We brought back the rare orchids that had been lost from South Florida — and there used to be orchids on every hardwood tree in South Florida," Lewis said.
The project is part of a broader mission Lewis described as transformational.
"We have this vision of transforming all of South Florida into a garden," Lewis said.
Fairchild is also home to the Wings of the Tropics butterfly exhibit, where visitors can see dozens of butterfly species from across the tropics up close.
"This is the Wings of the Tropics butterfly exhibit here at Fairchild, and we have so many different kinds of butterflies from all over the tropics here," Lewis said.
Lewis said the exhibit is more than just a visual experience — it's a teaching tool.
"It's a great place to teach about the connection between plants and animals, because they can see this real important dynamic between the flowers, the diversity of flowers we have here, and the diversity of pollinators," Lewis said.
Fairchild is also home to the Innovation Studio, a NASA-funded research facility where students are studying the technology for growing food in space — researching which plants would thrive beyond Earth's atmosphere.
"What we're doing is studying the technology for growing food in space," Lewis said.
Students are taking their findings directly to NASA.
"Taking all of their data and sharing their data with NASA," Lewis said.
"So we're working with a team at Kennedy Space Center where they're trying to figure out the best strategies for growing food for astronauts," Lewis said.
The garden's roots run deep in American food culture. It is named for David Fairchild, whose plant introductions shaped the American diet in ways most people never consider.
"Every day David Fairchild is probably impacting our life in some way — you pretty much can't eat a meal without eating some plant that David Fairchild brought into the U.S.," I said.
Lewis said Fairchild's work is about more than plants — it's about building a blueprint for cities around the world.
"We're really connecting technology to plants and biology in some really exciting ways here," Lewis said.
"If we do things right here in South Florida, this is going to be a model for cities in the tropics and other places," Lewis said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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