Block Botanical Gardens validates the Nurturing Nature® agricultural method… Our consultancy has integrated knowledge from Dr. Jeff Block’s medical profession and applied those guiding health & wellness principles to his inventive hybridizing and robust botanicals. Resulting from intelligent landscape design; not only are the gardens filled with award-winning rare plants, but they are also visually spectacular! Conservation-friendly high-quality irrigation products and practices responsibly sustain extraordinary specimens. The staff’s commitment to sustaining horticultural excellence supports and showcases many of the world’s most beautiful plants adapting to South Florida’s subtropical climate.

Much of the Nurturing Nature® team’s success stems from an extensive understanding of a given unique plant’s optimal need for water, air, and light. In addition to a rare plant conservatory, two automated greenhouses efficiently develop seeds to specimens that are nurtured to nature’s highest standards. Miami’s Block Botanical Gardens showcase abundant subtropical plant life derived from six continents, all extraordinarily thriving in a naturally rich century-old residential fruit grove. This gardens’ commitment to horticultural excellence supports and sustains the world’s most beautiful plants adapting to South Florida’s subtropical climate. Highly sought-after ornamental wonders abound and include internationally recognized palm, aroid, and bromeliad collections. Developed over three decades, these inviting gardens feature brick pathways accessing dramatic plant groupings grown to their greatest natural potential.

As a medical doctor, physician-scientist, master gardener educator and community leader, Block has a generation of unparalleled experiences with developing sustainable technologies and advanced irrigation practices serving fine subtropical gardens.

The gardens showcase abundant subtropical plant life thriving in a century old residential fruit grove. Developed over the past 35 years by award-winning horticulturist and landscape designer Dr. Jeff Block, the gardens feature brick pathways accessing dramatic plant groupings grown to their greatest natural potential.

A a medical doctor, physician scientist and Florida Master Gardener community leader, Dr. Block has decades of experience with developing leading-edge technologies and promoting advanced irrigation practices throughout outdoor subtropical gardens, in addition to an enclosed rare plant conservatory and two fully automated greenhouses. An internationally recognized bromeliad collection concentrates on ornamental plants with particularly dramatic leaf markings.

Rare palms and cycads are found thriving throughout the gardens, and groupings of rare fruit trees, flowering trees, and dedicated orchid and desert gardens offer something for all specialty interests. Dozens of other show-awarded specimen epiphytes festoon ancient oaks. Giants abound and include the country’s largest mango tree and Florida’s largest spiny Pink Floss Silk tree, that are officially recorded as the “Champion Trees” of their kind; and the largest remaining example of the extraordinarily beautiful but cold-sensitive “Red Sealing Wax” or “Lipstick” Palm.

Institutional Member, American Public Gardens Association (APGA)

Block Botanical Gardens’ Greenhouses circa 2008

Block Botanical Gardens’ custodial mission is to sustain subtropical ornamental plant specimens of extraordinarily high horticultural merit that compare favorably among the finest seen in the world…

We practice “The Art and Science of Nurturing Nature®”.

Translational science (also referred to as “translational medicine”) is a discipline within biomedical and public health research that aims to improve the health of individuals and the community by “translating” findings into diagnostic tools, medicines, procedures, policies and education. It is a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach that endeavors to translate new research and technology into practical ways that benefit community health in the safest and most efficient way possible that can be summarized as Lab bench; to the bedside; to the community.

T1 or translational phase 1 begins the translation journey from the lab bench seed selection, to testing effects at the patient’s bedside, to sharing the benefits with the community. During this phase, researchers usually conduct preclinical studies and phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. T2 expands discovery to larger patient populations in phase 3 and 4 clinical trials, observational studies, and even some survey research. T3 launches the practice-oriented stage of translational research by implementing it to find out if a certain treatment or practice works in a real-world setting. T4 focuses on policy. If T1-T3 were successful, the next step is to find the best method of reaching clinicians and patients with a global policy concerning treatment X or strategy Y.

Nurturing Nature® Group Consultants actively participates in the development of entity-specific best practices and quality standards; and can assist with deriving the metrics necessary to ensure that such standards are met and quality improved on a continual basis. Deriving from his 20-year hospital career experiences and understanding the federally required healthcare accreditation processes, Dr. Block innovated and incorporated The American Commission on Botanical Safety and Efficacy in 2015 to develop organizational accreditation standards that will benefit patient outcomes and improve the future burgeoning industry’s best practices.

Nurturing Nature® consultants provide quality assurance guidance in applying best practices to promote continuous quality improvement. Standards will be created and continually revised to reflect the objective scientific evidence for industry development. These standards will be shared and serve as the basis of an evaluation process that will help botanical medicine organizations measure, assess, and improve performance.

As in any industry, there are often “best practice guidelines” that become accepted as the standards within that industry. The United States Pharmacopeia’s (USP) publications for alternative herbal supplements are examples. These are offered as general guidelines that must be applied in specific ways within each operation and currently are regarded as minimum botanical medicine standards that are expected to evolve.

Nurturing Nature® integrates advances in plant health (horticulture) with those procedural processes derived from clinical medical healthcare. Those universally accepted methods used in the practice of medicine are, in essence, applied to our agricultural recommendations. This application of sophisticated processes involved is indeed a translation of fauna to flora.

“It’s hard to say what plant in Dr. Jeff Block’s collection is most beautiful, because each plant is riveting.”

1999 – The Miami Herald Georgia Tasker – Garden Editor

So began a featured Miami Herald story from November 14, 1999, about an extraordinary ten-year old private garden in Miami. It went on to describe Dr. Jeff Block’s background in science as a medical doctor and nurturing caretaker. His growing tips referenced in that article are still referenced by local garden enthusiasts. The careful plant selections and artistic grooming of several hundred handsome specimens are described as being grown to horticultural perfection… far surpassing those same plants when found in the wilds of nature.

“Fast-forward another ten years and we can now see the anticipated results of Block’s planning and labor. In addition to the garden’s high horticultural merit, at twenty years old we can now see the benefits of his original landscape design. This garden has been transformed from a collector’s garden into a masterful botanical garden offering balanced vistas among artistic vignettes of plantings.”

2010 – Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden

“A Rare Gem – The Twenty-Year Evolution of a Tropical Botanical Garden”

“In every grower’s life, there are epiphanies, and for many reasons. Mine was that the answer to growing many of these unusual plants was better water quality, and it was one of the oldest answers in the world. One of the last clinching proofs of this was my first visit to a small garden near my home, designed and administered most expertly by Dr. Jeff Block, a retired anesthesiologist and highly awarded plant collector. Many of his plants are of better quality and larger size than any I’ve seen, and one of the main reasons is his commitment to providing the plants with excellent water, mainly reverse-osmosis (“R.O.”) water.”

2015 Craig Morell – Director of Horticulture, Pinecrest Gardens, aka “Parrott Jungle”

“This garden is extraordinary in on so many levels beginning with the owner, Dr. Jeffrey Block. He has taken knowledge from his medical background and applied it to horticulture. Combine that with his interest in architecture and design and not only is this garden filled with rare and award-winning plants, it is also visually spectacular. He has successfully grown many plants that are notoriously difficult to grow here. Much of his success ‘stems’ from his extensive understanding of a plant’s needs in terms of light, water, air and nutrition.”

2012 “The Villagers” Annual Historical Garden Tour

As our ancestors evolved in prehistoric times, early humans likely recognized that profound relationships exist between plants and health. Ancient healers were among the earliest of civilization’s most accomplished botanists and would have been regarded poorly if they failed to keep their plants alive. Without horticultural knowledge and the ability to sustain plant-derived remedies, healers would have lost their formularies; and most certainly would have failed at their crafts.

The earliest physician healers included ancient medical wisdom recorded by four ancient cultures’ “fathers of medicine”: Imhotep in Egypt, Chang Chung-ching in China, Acharya Charak in India, and Hippocrates in Greece. They each appreciated and most notably recorded important ancient plant remedies that have withstood the test of time.

Nurturing Nature® brings unique combinations of botanical medicine horticulture complemented by expertise in clinical healthcare knowledge to give us an essential competitive edge. Ultimately, these backgrounds uniquely qualify Dr. Block to provide consultancy services that advance an evolving natural earth science within a remarkable emerging integrative medicine botanical industry only in its infancy.

New advances in technology continually shift; and can entirely disrupt which practices remain as competitive advantages compared with those that become disadvantages. Furthermore, external forces such as legislative actions have the potential to change the classifications fundamentally, and thereby the markets extended to botanical medicines.

Nurturing Nature® consultancy helps the producers, processors, and vendors of organizations having technology interests stay ahead of the curve in new developments within their respective industry segments. Dr. Block advises on contingency planning for disruptions in existing processes, whether medical, technological or legislative.

Jeffrey S. Block, M.D. is a nationally respected authority in both healthcare and the natural earth sciences. He achieved his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry (BA Emory – 1978) and his doctorate in medicine (MD Miami – 1982). He is a Board-Certified Anesthesiologist; and is additionally Fellowship trained in Pain Management & Addiction Medicine.?

As an academic adjunct Professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and the Florida Medical Association’s designated expert consultant on botanical medicines in 2014, Dr. Block authored the mandated continuing medical education course for physicians concerning marijuana published by the Florida Department of Health.

In part due to his agricultural qualifications, Dr. Block was independently selected by Florida’s Surgeon General in 2015 as the only physician trusted to develop Florida’s rules and regulations governing its existing cannabis law. As his expertise has demonstrated and documented over the past decade, his visibility and credibility within the industry grows; and the rate of inbound inquiries into the professional services of Nurturing Nature® Group Consultants has steadily increased.

As Marijuana’s acceptance into physicians’ formulary is reinitiated, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is reconsidering its prohibited status for a “rescheduling” into a Schedule 3, legal controlled substance. Dr. Block’s contributions to this necessary Federal process will be impactful to modern healthcare.