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Coming upWildflowers Festival 2027Mar 5–7, 2027Get ticketsExplore
Wildflowers Music Park

Where the Land Sings

Where the Land Sings. A watercolor of the Wildflowers Music Park sandhill in Melrose, Florida: a gopher tortoise beside a pond, a live oak and longleaf pines, coreopsis and blazing star in bloom. Where the land and the music are one. Conservation and culture grow together.
Walk the sandhill Support the land

The integrated mission

One Florida landscape, tended all year and gathered around in song.

Conservation and the arts arenot two programs.They are one living thing.

On larger screens these two story cards overlap. Hover either card, or move keyboard focus to it, to bring the complete card to the front.

Native coreopsis and blazing star blooming across the Florida sandhill
Tended year-round

The land

A living sandhill

Florida sandhill and oak hammock shelter gopher tortoises and the native wildflowers we propagate and protect. The land is why the music has a place to gather.

  • Prescribed fire and habitat stewardship
  • Dark-sky lighting and watershed care
  • Native planting and leave no trace
A roots-reggae group playing for a smiling, dancing crowd beneath enormous moss-draped live oaks at golden hour
Gathered in song

The music

A gathering place

Three days of music, dance, and craft on conserved ground. The festival invites people into the sandhill and carries its stewardship forward together.

  • Songwriters’ circles and community dance
  • Workshops for every generation
  • A Sustainability Pavilion on site
One mission

A sound wave grows into wildflower stems. What we hear and what we tend are the same gesture.

The Corporation's arts programming and its conservation work are intended to be mutually reinforcing rather than separate activities.
From our Bylaws, Section 2.1A

Wildflowers Festival · March 5–7, 2027

Under
the Live Oaks

Where the land and the music are one.

Once a year the park fills with music, dance, camp smoke, and neighbors. It is a family gathering first: joyful, unhurried, and rooted in the place that hosts it.

Explore the festival See the lineup
A folk band playing on a timber stage to a dancing crowd beneath enormous moss-draped live oaks at golden hour
Melrose, Florida
A roots-reggae ensemble playing for a smiling, dancing crowd beneath enormous live oaks at golden hour

Music

Roots, folk, reggae, and dance bands carry the clearing from afternoon into the firefly hours.

Dance

Contra and community dances where newcomers and old hands share the same floor.

Camping

Three nights on the land beneath dark skies, waking to birdsong and the sandhill at first light.

01

Workshops

Songwriters’ circles, instrument lessons, craft, and movement led by artists and neighbors.

02

Food & craft

Local cooks and makers, a market of handwork, and the good smells that gather everyone to one table.

03

Family field

Hands-on play, stories, and gentle wonder, built so every generation belongs here.

A Florida sandhill with a live oak, longleaf pines, pond, coreopsis, blazing star, and a gopher tortoise

Keystone neighbor

The park & conservation

Where the
land sings.

A real park, open all year. Come hike, take a guided tour, learn at an educational event, or gather with neighbors while the sandhill and oak hammock are tended with intention.

Conservation and culture grow together here.

Visit the park Support the land
01

Hiking

Walk sandhill and oak hammock through the changing seasons.

02

Guided tours

See the living systems of the park with a knowledgeable guide.

03

Educational events

Field learning and creative programs for children and adults.

04

Community events

Seasonal reasons to gather on the land beyond festival weekend.

A low prescribed fire moving through longleaf pine

Fire

Renews the wiregrass and opens the sandhill to light.

A still pond reflecting pines under a blue sky

Water

Connects this place to every place downstream.

A gopher tortoise on open sandy ground among wiregrass

Wildlife

Tells us whether the whole habitat is thriving.

Coreopsis and blazing star in bloom across the sandhill

Wildflowers

Return color, food, and rhythm to the seasons.

How we tend it

Stewardship is a practice, not a backdrop.

Sandhill & hammock

Longleaf pine, wiregrass, and shady live-oak hammock: some of Florida’s most storied habitat.

Prescribed fire

Careful, planned burns renew the understory and keep the sandhill healthy.

Native planting

We propagate coreopsis and other native wildflowers and return them to the land.

Dark skies

Considered, low-glare lighting lets the stars and fireflies keep their place.

Watershed care

We protect the waters that run through and beneath the park for the region downstream.

Leave no trace

Everyone who gathers here helps carry the land forward as they found it, or better.

Education

Field learning, creative practice, and careful attention to the place beneath our feet.

Learn the land.Carry it forward.

Still water reflecting the longleaf pines and native vegetation of the park

The park is the classroom

Ways of knowing

Ecology, art, and music give us different ways to pay attention.

Learning is woven through everything we do. When people come to know a place, they come to love it, and stewardship follows naturally from that love.

A white-tailed deer and wild turkeys in the park’s sandhill and live-oak habitat

Meet the wildlife

School Day at Wildflowers

Local students spend a day on the land, meeting the park’s wildlife, sandhill, and native wildflowers up close.

Longleaf pines, live oak, pond, and native wildflowers in the park

Read the seasons

Guided nature walks

Naturalist-led walks through hammock and sandhill, reading the habitat season by season.

Neighbors of different ages dancing together beneath mature live oaks

Make together

Workshops for all ages

Music, craft, and ecology sessions where making and learning happen side by side.

A small roots-reggae ensemble performing for a smiling, dancing crowd beneath enormous live oaks at golden hour

Time to listen

Artist residencies

Musicians and makers spend time on the land, then share what the place grows in them.

Neighbors of every age dancing together beneath mature live oaks

Community

Rooted in
Melrose.

Wildflowers grows from its neighbors: the people who steward the land, play the music, and raise the next generation on both. Local makers, musicians, farmers, and families give the park its character and keep it genuinely ours.

Melrose
Our home in Eastern Alachua County, Florida
3 days
Of music, dance, and camping each year

Get involved

Help the land
sing on.

The park thrives on people who love it. Choose the way that fits you and become part of the story of this place.

01

Become a Friend

Join as a Friend and Supporter. Your membership keeps the land tended and the music playing.

Become a Friend
02

Donate

A gift of any size supports conservation, the arts, and education on the land.

Give a gift
03

Volunteer

Lend your hands to stewardship, the arts, hospitality, or education. There is a place here for you.

Volunteer with us