West Martello's Plant Sale Comes Around Again, and This Year the Garden Has a New Landlord

Late this summer, a vanilla orchid bloomed inside the walls of Fort West Martello. The Key West Garden Club put a photo of it in its summer newsletter and thanked Pam Van-Soest for keeping the orchids in good shape. That issue also covered the volunteers who come in on Monday mornings to water, fertilize the orchids and clean up. The same newsletter gave the date that much of that work is aimed at: the annual plant sale on Nov. 20 and 21.

The sale is easy to treat as a pleasant weekend at the end of Atlantic Boulevard. It's also a fundraiser built on the Club's own work. Volunteers grow plants to selling size in a nursery behind the fort walls. The sale turns that stock into money for the garden and the fort. This year the sale happens under a new landlord. Higgs Beach, including the Club's fort, moved from Monroe County to the City of Key West on May 1. The old lease came with it, but no new City agreement with the Club has been announced.

The stock is grown behind the fort walls

The Club's nursery recently got a new name. Nursery Curator Kitty Somerville wrote in the summer newsletter that the program is no longer just about propagation. It has become "a dedicated facility where plants are propagated, grown, and nurtured from seeds, cuttings, or tiny seedlings until they reach a healthy, saleable size." Volunteers handle the watering, fertilizing, pruning and pest control, and Somerville listed weeding and watering as the jobs that take the most time. The nursery area itself was rebuilt this year. It got a replacement work table, a cabinet, pull-out drawers, and pavers where there used to be pea gravel. The crew held a small celebration to show it off.

It was a tough season for that work. Garden Curator Lynne Bentley-Kemp described four straight months of triple-digit heat indices, starting in May. She also noted that fewer volunteers were working once the seasonal members headed north. The garden had been mulched and pruned before summer, which she said saved a lot of plants. She kept checking the irrigation because the chickens kept knocking sprinkler heads out of place. By the time the summer newsletter went out, the rains had come back. The carambola and Barbados cherry trees were fruiting, and two healthy beehives were working inside the fort wall, away from visitors.

The newer plantings across the grounds came from the same volunteer work. That includes gaillardia on the seaside slope of the hill, potted ground orchids by the Butterfly Garden, mulched bromeliads and a new xeriscape bed. In spring, the Club also reported new plantings by the waterfall and a renovated arch.

Two days, the weekend before Thanksgiving

Visit Florida's listing puts the 2026 Plant Sale and Art Market at Key West Gardens Fort West Martello, 1100 Atlantic Blvd. It runs Friday, Nov. 20, and Saturday, Nov. 21, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The listing calls it a weekend-before-Thanksgiving event with tropical plants, local art, handmade crafts and gifts. It says proceeds support the gardens, educational programs and the preservation of West Martello. The Club's own calendar shows the garden closed all day Thursday, Nov. 19, for setup.

The Club hasn't posted a 2026 vendor list. Recent years give a sense of the mix:

• 2025: KONK Life's announcement listed free parking and free admission, native and exotic plants, orchids, bromeliads, local artists, and food and drinks.
• 2022: Keys Weekly reported plants grown by the Club, both ornamental and native. There were plants for sun, shade and dry conditions, plus tomatoes, herbs, orchids, bromeliads, tillandsias, garden supplies and horticultural products. Outside sellers included Soroa Orchids, Tropiflora Nursery, OFE Intl. and Living Towers.

Those were past lineups, so this year's sellers may be different. The connection to the nursery holds every year, though. When the Club's own plants go on the table, they're the ones volunteers carried through that summer heat.

A County lease, a City landlord

For most of its history, the garden has had the same landlord. The Club's spring newsletter says Monroe County has owned West Fort Martello since the 1940s, and that the Club and its predecessors have cared for it since 1955. The Club's history page goes back further. Plans for the Martello towers were drawn in 1836, and construction started in 1863. Work stopped in 1873, and the towers were never armed. When County officials considered tearing down West Martello in 1949, Joe Allen stepped in and helped arrange a lend-lease agreement. The name West Martello/Joe Allen Garden Center followed in 1984. The Club's own history says members voted to take possession on May 7, 1953. Last December, the Club marked 70 years at Higgs Beach with an evening of holiday lights, food from Kaya Island Eats and $70 tickets. Keys Weekly reported that the proceeds went toward a history installation for the garden.

That changed this spring. In a Key West Citizen column, the County handed the keys to the 16.5-acre park to the City at a ceremony on April 30. The transfer took effect May 1 and covered everything from the White Street Pier to the Casa Marina Resort, including "the Key West Garden Club's Fort West Martello." The draft interlocal agreement in the City's agenda materials lists the Garden Club among the County tenants whose leases the City takes on "as assigned." It also makes the City responsible for paying for listed West Martello repairs, including an HVAC project and a rain-catchment system identified as owned by the Club. On May 7, the City Commission approved $375,000 for the West Martello HVAC work, according to the City's meeting record.

Club president Mary Olson wrote to members in the spring newsletter that the transfer had raised "lots of unknowns and lots of questions":

"Do we anticipate some changes? Most likely. Some of which may have a positive or negative impact on our operations. But I can also tell you that our lease, which was made in 1997, was not fully held up by Monroe County either."

In the same letter, she described the talks with the Mayor, City Manager and City staff as "extremely open and cooperative." The Citizen column explained part of what's at stake. The Club's agreement with the County included County money for some operating costs and for repairs and maintenance. The column also noted that the Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden on Stock Island has a 99-year lease from the City and raises its own funds. Its author expected that any City agreement with the Garden Club would probably look similar.

The plant sale fits into that picture. A garden that may end up raising more of its own operating money needs a reliable fundraiser, and the sale proceeds already go to the gardens, educational programs and the fort. The Club starts this season in good shape. Olson reported that the fiscal year ended April 30 with positive income, and that visitor numbers and donations were both up. The rest of the park is up for discussion too. Our earlier look at the City's draft plan for the park behind Higgs Beach follows that side of the change.

November at the fort, date by date

On a normal day, the garden is free and open to the public from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the nonprofit is run and maintained by member volunteers. The Club's visitor guide points out the Butterfly Garden, native wildflowers on the hilltop, the Perfume Garden in the inner courtyard, and orchids in two courtyard arbors. It says most of the garden is accessible by wheelchair and stroller. In 2025, the old courtyard brick floor came up, the base was re-sanded, leveled and repaired, and the original brick went back down.

This is what's left on the Club's November calendar as of this week:

The Club also has a new time for its general meetings. The first one of the season was set for Sunday, Nov. 1, at 1 p.m., and the summer newsletter said the change was meant to let more people attend. If you live close enough to walk past the Higgs Beach bocce courts on the way, it's an easy walk to the fort. Plan around Thursday the 19th, when the gate stays closed for setup.

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