The Florida Azalea Festival fills downtown Palatka and the riverfront for a weekend in late February or early March, timed to the bloom at Ravine Gardens State Park. Hummingbird House is a restored 1871 home in the historic district between the two, with azaleas of its own along the front fence.
When is the Florida Azalea Festival?
The 77th annual festival ran February 27 to March 1, 2026, in downtown Palatka and at the city dock, with arts and crafts, food, live music, and river cruises from the riverfront. Admission was free. The festival has run for more than 75 years; check its own site for the next dates, which are usually announced in winter.
Where are the azaleas?
Ravine Gardens State Park, a 1933 New Deal garden planted into two ravines up to 120 feet deep, is about five minutes from the house. Florida State Parks gives the peak as late January through April, and the festival weekend usually lands near the top of it. The park opens at 8 a.m., and the 1.8-mile rim loop is quietest before cars are allowed on it at 9.
Why stay at Hummingbird House for the festival?
- Walk to the festival. Downtown and the riverfront are a short walk through streets of nineteenth-century homes.
- Azaleas at home. They bloom along the front of the house in late February, bright pink against the white clapboard.
- Sleeps six in two bedrooms and a daybed on the landing until a queen Murphy bed arrives, with a full bath with a clawfoot tub upstairs and a half bath downstairs.
- A gas fireplace for the cool evenings that late February still brings.
- Easy parking in the paver driveway, so you are not hunting for a space downtown.
How should you plan the weekend?
Ravine Gardens early on Saturday before the crowds, the festival through the afternoon, dinner downtown, and the porch at dusk. Sunday morning is the time for the murals and the historic district on foot. Our festival calendar has the rest of the year if the dates do not line up.