Bok Tower Gardens is a 250-acre (100 ha) contemplative garden and bird sanctuary located atop Iron Mountain, north of Lake Wales, Florida, United States.
Edward W. Bok, editor of the magazine The Ladies Home Journal, and his wife, Mary Louise Curtis Bok, spent the winter of 1921 in Florida, near Lake Wales Ridge. The Boks loved the beauty of the area, and created a 25 acres (10 ha) bird sanctuary on the ridge's highest hill to protect the land from being developed for houses. They commissioned noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. to transform what then was an arid sandhill into "a spot of beauty second to none in the country".
The first year was spent digging trenches and laying pipes for irrigation, after which soil was brought to the site by thousands of truck loads and plantings began. Olmsted's plan included the planting of 1,000 large live oaks, 10,000 azaleas, 100 sabal palms, 300 magnolias, and 500 gordonias, as well as hundreds of fruit shrubs such as blueberry and holly.
The gardens are currently ten times their original size, and feature acres of ferns, palms, oaks, pines, and wetland plants. The plantings also include camellias, tree ferns, creeping fig, yaupon and dahoon holly, Asiatic jasmine, Justicia, crinum and spider lily, monstera, wax myrtle, date and sabal palm, papyrus, philodendron, blue plumbago, and horsetail rush. The site is a refuge for more than a hundred bird species. Wild turkey and groups of sandhill cranes are also often seen wandering the grounds.