"Hidden behind a busy highway bustling with gas stations, car lots, a high school, and a boat dealership, you'll find the paradise that is Spring Hammock Preserve." That is how the Old-Growth Forest Network opened its write-up of the Longwood preserve after it joined the network in 2025.

For most of Longwood, the familiar part is the boardwalk at Big Tree Park. You walk out to where The Senator stood, look up at Lady Liberty and head back to the car. By Seminole County's own description, though, Big Tree Park is one piece of a property of about 1,500 acres. That property also includes Soldiers Creek Park, carries part of the Cross Seminole Trail and the Florida National Scenic Trail, and runs east until it reaches Lake Jesup. The boardwalk most people know is the shortest walk in the forest.

Three entrances to one forest

The county lists Spring Hammock Preserve at 2985 Osprey Trail in Longwood. It describes the land as a mix of floodplain forest, hydric hammock, upland mixed hardwoods and pine flatwoods. Rare and listed species live there, including the bipinnate cuplet fern, the Okeechobee gourd and the gopher tortoise. Each of the three entrances reaches a different part of that mix.

Check the hours before you go, because the county's listings don't match. Big Tree Park's page says daily from 8 a.m. to dusk. Spring Hammock's location page says dawn to dusk. The county's Fall 2026 Leisure Guide lists both as open 8 a.m. to sunset. If you want an early start, plan on the 8 a.m. opening.

Part of the property has a different job. Seminole County Public Schools leases part of it for its Environmental Studies Center, which hosts fifth-grade classes from across the county.

Why a national network counted it

The Old-Growth Forest Network uses three tests for its top "Network Forest" status. The forest should be among the oldest known in its county. It should be protected from commercial logging. And it should be open to the public. Seminole County marked Spring Hammock's addition in February 2025. The network called it Florida's 11th Network forest and the first one in Seminole County. WFIT reported it as Central Florida's first.

The reason starts with the trees at Big Tree Park. The network describes Lady Liberty as a bald cypress estimated at 2,000 years old. It is almost 90 feet tall, nearly 10 feet in diameter and 400 inches around, with a crown spread of about 35 feet. For years people called it "The Companion" because it stood about 40 feet from The Senator. The Senator was lost to arson in 2012. Based on its size, it was thought to be about 3,500 years old. The network's verdict: "We simply don't have any other forests like it in the Network!"

The park is old as a public place, too. Senator M.O. Overstreet donated the land to Seminole County, and President Calvin Coolidge dedicated it in 1929. After the fire, the county built a memorial. It added interpretive signs along the renovated boardwalk, a playground piece shaped like a bald cypress stump and a clone of The Senator called "The Phoenix," planted near the playground. A Spectrum News feature from March 2026 adds two details. Lady Liberty has a lightning rod to help protect it from strikes, and art made from Senator wood is on display at the Museum of Seminole County History.

Those two trees are the best-known part of the designation. The forest behind them makes up most of it.

The Osprey Trailhead was rebuilt for the rest of the forest

If the old trees explain why the network counted Spring Hammock, the Osprey Trailhead is how you get into the rest of it. In September 2025, Seminole County officials cut the ribbon on upgrades there. The work added new boardwalks, a pavilion, ADA-accessible paths and better bridge crossings. It was paid for with the county's One Cent Infrastructure Penny Sales Tax and state funding. WFTV reported the finished project at $2 million, with accessible parking as part of it.

County Commission Chairman Jay Zembower put it this way at the ribbon cutting: "You have people from all around this state, all around this country who have to travel to either national parks or far destinations to enjoy this. We have it right here in the center of this County."

The upgrades also support the "Mud Walk," a long-running program for Seminole County Public Schools fifth graders. For adults, the county's Cross Seminole Trail page describes the walk here as a stroll through cypress forest on the boardwalk to Lake Jesup. The Big Tree Park boardwalk ends at a memorial. The Osprey boardwalk ends at the lake that forms the preserve's eastern edge.

The parkway between them is part of the Florida Trail

General Hutchison Parkway feels like a shaded commuter road, and it also links the two halves of the preserve. The Florida Trail Association says the Florida National Scenic Trail leaves Spring Hammock Preserve, follows the berm of General Hutchison Parkway to Big Tree Park and keeps going north. That stretch belongs to the Cassia segment, which is 33.8 miles long. Its middle section uses the Rinehart Road/Crossings bike path and the Seminole-Wekiva path. It crosses I-4 in Lake Mary on a $3.6 million suspension bridge that opened on National Trails Day 2003, and the segment ends at the Clearwater Lake trailhead in the Ocala National Forest.

Coming from the other direction, the Florida Trail's 29.2-mile Lake Jesup segment ends at Spring Hammock Preserve. So the forest behind the SR 434 and US 17-92 corridors is where two segments of a statewide trail meet.

The other route is the Cross Seminole Trail. It covers 23 miles, from Aloma Avenue and Howell Branch Road in Winter Park to the I-4 pedestrian bridge in Lake Mary, and it has Longwood trailheads at Big Tree Park and Soldiers Creek Park. If you already ride or run the trail, the preserve is a turn off a route you know. Our earlier look at how Longwood's Saturdays have shifted toward Reiter Park and the trail followed that same corridor from the other end of town.

This Saturday's Swamp Walk goes the farthest in

You can see the boardwalk side of Spring Hammock any day. The off-boardwalk side takes a guide. The county's Natural Lands Program, which manages more than 6,600 acres of preserved land, has scheduled a Swamp Walk at Spring Hammock for this Saturday, October 10, from 9 to 11 a.m. Hikers follow a guide along the unmarked trails of a hydric hammock and wade waist-deep in swamp water. The county rates it strenuous and limits it to ages 10 and up.

The basics, from the county's Fall 2026 Natural Lands newsletter:

• Guided hikes cost $5 per person, and you register in advance at recreation.seminolecountyfl.gov.
• Children must be at least 7 and with an adult unless a hike says otherwise. The Swamp Walk raises the minimum to 10.
• Questions go to 407-665-2216.
• The county says hikes fill up quickly.

The fall season at Spring Hammock is nearly over. The Equinox Evening Hike on September 22 and the Owl Prowl on September 26 have already happened. The newsletter's November and December hikes move to the Econ River Wilderness Area in Oviedo: a Fall Foraging Hike on November 14 and a Morning Migration Birding Hike on December 19. After Saturday, the newsletter lists no other Spring Hammock hikes through the end of the year, though the boardwalks to Lady Liberty and Lake Jesup stay open every day.

Lakes, trails and old trees shape how a home in Longwood lives day to day, and that is the part of the market we know best. If you are thinking about which streets near General Hutchison Parkway, SR 419 or the Cross Seminole Trail put the preserve within a short walk, The Mel Bernstein Team is happy to talk through it, starting with our Longwood neighborhood guide. Let's Connect.