S.F.’S Golden Sanctuary
For 150 years, Golden Gate Park has been a unique refuge in a busy city. In this time of social isolation, it’s appreciated more than ever.
Coverage from The Chronicle
Ten SF creations helped define Golden Gate Park. You can enjoy them all today
Observed: Scenes from
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park before shelter-in-place
Read More
Read More
CHRONICLE VAULT // OUR SAN FRANCISCO
CULTURE DESK
San Francisco Botanical Garden:
Public oasis, private haven
Read More
CULTURE DESK
CHRONICLE VAULT
Read More
Golden Gate Park at 150: Archive photos of San Francisco at rest and play in the park throughout decades
More from The Chronicle
6 places to stargaze around the Bay Area during coronavirus
Read More
sf chronicle
sf chronicle
Read More
Santa Cruz’s rail trail inches towards completion
Sponsored Content
Travel the World in 55 Acres
Escape to a unique urban oasis of extraordinary beauty at San Francisco Botanical Garden.
Use this interactive map to explore our 55 acres of gardens, and check out our collections that feature more than 9,000 different kinds of plants from around the world!
GARDEN HISTORY
WHAT TO SEE
PLANT FINDER
Discover Maps from Community Partner Golden Gate Park here
2015 marked 75 years since the Garden opened to the public as a place of beauty, learning and inspiration. In the 1870s, William Hammond Hall tamed the dunes and, planting 66,000 trees, transformed a “howling waste of sand” into San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. As the Park’s first superintendent, Hall created the original survey and master plan for the Park, which included a modest 12-acre arboretum. But it was his successor, John McLaren, with the financial support of a prosperous widow named Helene Strybing, who ultimately crafted a vision for a grander arboretum and botanical garden in Golden Gate Park and carried it out. Work began during the Great Depression with the help of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
In 1937, Eric Walther was appointed the first director of San Francisco Botanical Garden, a position he held until 1957. Together, Walther and McLaren drew the original plan, which consisted of a building (never constructed) along a central axis between what is now the Strybing Memorial Bench and the Zellerbach Garden. Paths radiated from that central axis into a variety of global collections including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Mediterranean region, China, the Himalayas, Japan, Mexico, Central and South America and California. The San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum (originally named simply Strybing Arboretum) opened in 1940 to a public eager to see its unfamiliar and alluring collections
Walther is pictured here next to a Magnolia campbellii, his favorite plant.
Planted with both native species (particularly requested by Strybing were those of medicinal interest to indigenous peoples), and very exotic flora from faraway lands (including many of the plants from New Zealand’s exhibit at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition), the Garden immediately made horticultural history when its rare cup and saucer magnolia tree became the first of its kind to bloom in the United States. Huge crowds of excited and curious visitors stood in long lines to see the stunning large pink blossoms of this famous magnolia that still stands in the
Garden today.
The San Francisco Botanical Garden is in a special position to help educate the public and nurture the plants that make it so special. The year 2015 does not represent the end of the timeline, just the beginning of the Garden's next 75 years of enriching our community and engaging us in Earth's exquisite biodiversity. We would like to thank the donors, members, visitors, volunteers, garden staff and the people of San Francisco who have been involved throughout the years and who continue to make the Garden a cherished part of the cultural fabric of our community.
Garden History
Finding their place in the climatic “sweet spot” between the hot steamy lowlands and alpine peaks, the cloud forests of the Andes Mountains are a unique and incredibly biodiverse region ranging from Venezuela to northern Argentina. San Francisco’s cool foggy climate is reminiscent of these highland regions in the tropics, so it is no wonder that our Andean Cloud Forest Collection has flourished.
There are new and established high-elevation palms in our collection including the tallest palm in the world from the Colombian Andes, the Andean wax palm (Ceroxylon quindiuense). Our specimens were planted in 1980, and are still in juvenile form at 60 feet. The tallest Ceroxylon quindiuense on record in Colombia has reached over 200 feet. However, there are many other exciting plants that are closer to eye level like our species Fuschia collection.
The Andean Cloud Forest, currently under renovation, grew from SFBG’s close relationship with the Botany Department at the California Academy of Sciences, in particular Senior Curator of Botany, Frank Almeda. Dr. Almeda has been traveling to South America for over 10 years to study the Melastomataceae family, many of which grow in cloud forest habitats. Over the years, Frank has shared seed with SFBGS Curator Dr. Don Mahoney, to grow our collection of Andean Cloud Forest plants.
The cornerstone of the Andean Cloud Forest is the most comprehensive collection of high elevation palm species known, found in any botanical garden in the world. More recent palm plantings include the Bolivian Mountain coconut (Parajubaea torallyi), that grows at 11,000 feet in the Bolivian Andes making it the highest-elevation palm. The border of this new collection will be bookended by two small groves of Araucaria species (Araucaria angustifolia and Araucaria araucana). When mature, these trees will create a striking vista as their umbrella-shaped canopies reach up and over the collection. Along with the Mesoamerican and Southeast Asian cloud forest gardens, the Andean Cloud Forest collection represents a key biodiversity hotspot of plants rapidly disappearing in the wild.
Andean Cloud Forest
Australia is an island continent that is as large as the continental United States. As a result of its isolation, there are many distinct plant species that have evolved over time representing extreme diversity. Key features of Australian flora include adaptations to aridity and fire. Many plants are serotinous, which means they need fire for seed germination (such as the bottle brush Callistemon). Another adaptation is being sclerophyllous, where they develop reduced, thick leaves as an adaptation to an arid environment (such as Acacia). We have many genera in the Australia Garden that possess these adaptations including Banksia, Eucalyptus, and Leptospermum.
Some Australian plants seem otherworldly; the development of many unusual and unexpected plant species can be attributed to the continent’s isolation. This collection showcases an awe-inspiring tapestry of foliage and flowers representing some of the most fascinating in the plant kingdom. The original “Eastern Australia” garden dates back to the 1930’s. In the 1980’s, Dick Turner, former Garden director and editor of Pacific Horticulture, created a plan for renovations, and Rodger Elliot, a noted Australian plantsman, carried out the planting plan for the circular rock garden near the Friend Gate. However, it was the building of the new restroom that initiated the latest renovation. In the winter of 2004, Australian landscape designer Bernard Trainor devised the plan for the new plantings. Trainor was responsible for the new plaza and plantings. Sculpted concrete walls were hand poured to resemble ancient rock strata and provide a secluded semi-circular seating area.
Australia Garden
There is no denying the beauty and diversity of California’s landscapes, and as a result, its flora is the most diverse in the United States. A dedicated garden to showcase California native plants was in the original bequest from Helene Strybing when establishing the Garden. A visit to our native garden is equally diverse with experiences as well. A walk in our coast redwood grove (Sequoia sempervirens) will humble you with their size and tranquility. Alight your senses in the Arthur L. Menzies Garden of California Native Plants with the blazing colors of wildflowers, distinctive sweet smells of plants like our many sages (Salvia spp.), or listen to the busy activity of native insects and birds.
California boasts close to 6,000 native plants, more than all the other states combined! In fact, California was named one of the 25 biodiversity hotspots on the planet, which are areas with some of the highest concentrations of plant life on earth. You’ll see some of our state’s most beautiful natives at our garden. The Garden of California Native Plants is named in honor of Arthur L. Menzies, a former assistant curator at Strybing Arboretum, who was considered a leading authority on California wildflowers.
This four-acre collection contains displays of over 500 taxa (species and cultivars), arroyos (dry creeks), ponds, woodlands and, at its center, a wildflower meadow.The meadow is more densely flowered than one would find in any natural setting in modern-day California. Here the wildflowers grow among native bunch grasses, like fescues and needle grass, which allow space for flowers to flourish. Elsewhere in the state, native grasses and flowers like these struggle for room with the alien plants that the European settlers brought. April and May are the best times to visit for a glimpse of bright blue wild lilac amidst a carpet of meadowfoam, iris, poppies and other
amazing California native plants.
California Native Garden
A mirror image to the Pacific Coast of North America, Chile stretches a length comparable to that of the Pacific Northwest to the tip of the Baja, and with the variety of climates to match. Chilean plants have long been a part of the Garden’s history, with specimens dating back to before our opening in 1940. Some phenomenal old specimens include the peumo (Cryptocarya alba) and winter’s bark tree (Drimys winteri) planted next to the Zellerbach Garden.
The Chilean Garden was among the original collections that opened the Garden in 1940. Nestled next to the Andean Cloud Forest, this small but important garden has seen upgrades and renovation in recent years. Some of its special attributes include a mass planting of over 10 Chilean wine palms (Jubaea chilensis) at the entrance, alongside different Puya species, and a small grove of Chilean myrtle (Luma apiculata) with vibrant tan-orange bark, that stands in dramatic contrast to the deep green glossy leaves.
Driven by our mission to grow one of the world’s finest collections, the evolution of the Chilean Garden continues. New interpretive signage has recently been added to the collection that focuses on medicinal Chilean plants. It is imperative that we protect these plants as urban and agricultural encroachment threatens their native habitat. Many of these flowering shrubs, trees and impressive plants are rare and endangered. The SFBG is one of the only botanical gardens in the world where these plants can grow outdoors successfully, helping to conserve many vulnerable plant species.
Chile Garden
The namesake of the climate that characterizes the 5 unique regions of the world characterized by warm dry summers and cool wet winters. Straddling the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, the Mediterranean Basin is rich with history and cultures, and so are the plants which reflect this exchange of people and close proximity of land masses. Our Mediterranean garden is a recent and well-loved addition to our collection due to the efforts of horticulturist, Jason Martinez. Come enjoy the blooms and fragrances of the familiar culinary herbs native to this region, and marvel at the incredible blue flowers of our various Echiums.
A 30-foot hill of invasive ivy in the San Francisco Botanical Garden sat undisturbed for at least 25 years. Named Heidelberg Hill for the 1894 Midwinter Fair, where it was the site of a German village and beer garden, this area has been transformed into a stunning new Mediterranean garden. Nestled among the boulders, the collection has become one that reflects plant communities found in a rocky, sunlit terrain along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. A border of blue atlas fescue (Festuca mairei) and scarlet poppies (Papaver rhoeas), leads the eye upwards past glorious clumps of snapdragons (Antirrhinum hispanicum), Echium spp., rosemary (Rosmarinus spp.), lavender (Lavandula spp.), yarrow (Achillea tomentosa), and salvias (Salvia spp.) to the summit of the hill.
Over twenty different rockroses in shades of pink and white are scattered throughout this new garden. Rockroses are superb sun-loving, drought tolerant plants, never needing water once established (though well-drained soil is essential). They open in the morning and drop their petals by mid-afternoon, replaced with new flowers the following day. Rockroses are not actually roses at all as they are in the family Cistaceae. Cistus, ‘kistos’ in Greek, means ‘rocky places’, which is a great description of their native habitat and the one wonderfully recreated here in our Mediterranean Garden.
Mediterranean Garden
High above the tropical rain forests in Central and South America, the landscape rises to elevations upwards of 6,500 feet. The close tropical air cools to mist and fog, which harbors an abundance of mosses, ferns and epiphytes. Amidst a backdrop of every shade of green imaginable, high moisture levels and cool year-round temperatures sustain plants that vie for precious sunlight. Here in San Francisco, conditions are ripe for cloud forest plants. We have mild temperatures and, especially in summer, plenty of fog. Anyone who’s tried to grow a beefsteak tomato in San Francisco has bemoaned the fog at least once, but it’s this cooling moisture that enables us to grow this wonderful Mesoamerican Cloud Forest collection.
Normally found at altitudes of 6,000-10,000 feet in Mexico’s highlands, these plants thrive at sea level here because of our moist air and year-round, mild temperatures. A variety of species native to tropical mountains in Mexico, Central, and South America come together in the southwest corner of the Botanical Garden to recreate the feeling of an actual cloud forest – employing trees, shrubs, groundcover, ferns, vines and epiphytes to create a mass of dense vegetation.
Dr. Dennis Breedlove, botanist and curator at the California Academy of Sciences, first began work on the flora in Southern Mexico in the early 1960’s and 1970’s. He noticed the remarkable similarity in climate of these foggy montane regions to that of San Francisco, and in 1984 the first plantings of the Mesoamerican Cloud Forest began. What was thought to be an experiment has now set the stage for the Garden’s premier collection, montane tropical and subtropical flora. Several decades in the ground, the garden is taking on the feel of an actual cloud forest with tropical oaks and pines gaining substantial size and creating a beautiful canopy.
Mesoamerican Cloud Forest
With high rainfall and cooling oceanic influence, the islands of New Zealand are famous for their beautiful scenery from lush forests to rugged windswept peaks. Due to its isolation, New Zealand boasts a unique flora with an astonishing 80% found nowhere else on earth. Some of the oldest trees in the Garden date back to the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition, where plants provided by the New Zealand government later found their place at the Garden. Several of these grand specimens are still at the Garden like our massive New Zealand Christmas trees (Metrosideros excelsa) with its aerial roots, and statuesque totaras (Podocarpus totara).
West Coast gardeners will recognize many of the plants in our New Zealand collection, as they have become valuable for gardens and landscaping due to their interesting foliage forms. New Zealand flora thrives here due to the similarly mild climate, though they do require periodic watering during our summer dry spell. Interestingly most New Zealand flora has a noticeable absence of large showy flowers. This is likely because that type of flower evolved primarily by the plant to attract insect pollinators, and these pollinators were probably scarce in the islands before European settlers brought bees over with them. Shrubs such as Pohutukawa (New Zealand Christmas tree, Metrosideros excelsa), with its bright red flowers probably evolved to attract the available polinators instead: birds.
New Zealand
Found at the southernmost limit of the African continent, there is no limit the amazement that South Africa’s flora can offer. Varied climates and topography have contributed to a flora of over 22,000 species and its own floristic province. Our South African collection boasts an incredible array of showy plants that thrive in our cool foggy climate and well drained sandy soil. At any time of the year you can find something in bloom, whether it be the drifts of Nerine in late autumn, or the massive flowers of Proteas during spring and summer.
The southwest tip of South Africa, near Cape Town, has a Mediterranean climate with dry summers and mild wet winters, much like coastal California. The South Africa collection shows how well plants from the Cape region thrive in San Francisco’s similar climate. Many South African plants are therefore a good choice for water conserving gardens in our area. When plants and seeds are moved from the southern hemisphere they shift their growth and blooming periods by 6 months to adapt to a reversal of the seasons. Be sure to check out our many stunning plants from the Protea family, which includes the genus Leucadendron and Leucospermum as well as from the genus Protea. These plant families contain some of the most dramatic flowering plants of the Cape region, that usually can only be grown in greenhouses throughout most of Europe and North America, making them a California garden novelty. Each flower is actually made up of hundreds of tiny flowers in vivid yellows, reds and pinks. Proteas are well adapted to their native climate, they have tough leathery leaves to protect against moisture loss and many have silvery hairs as well to keep leaves cool. Pressure from human population growth, encroaching agriculture and invasive plants threaten many South African native floras. Plants such as the heather, Erica verticillata, which became extinct in the wild have only been saved through the hard work of botanical gardens.
South Africa
With mountains rising above 7000 feet, the cloud forests of Southeast Asia contain an array of unique species, with many new ones being discovered to this day. These misty highlands are home to tropical oak relatives, a plethora of begonias, and the beloved Vireya rhododendrons. Our Southeast Asian Cloud forest collection is still in development, with many wild collected species brought to the Garden from expeditions by previous Collections Manager, Bian Tan. There is always a brightly colored Vireya in bloom to surprise you with each visit, and be amazed by our massive climbing rattan palm (Plectocomia himalayana).
The Southeast Asian Cloud Forest was set aside for plants from the mountains of Southeast Asia in the early days of the garden. In recent decades, it has featured Vireya rhododendrons which although normally thrive at cool and moist elevations between 7,000-12,000 feet, can be grown here at sea level because temperatures and growing conditions are similar. Currently undergoing enrichment from plants grown in our nursery, the Southeast Asian collection still offers excellent examples of other cloud forest plants, such as fishtail palms.
Southeast Asian Cloud Forest
Camellias have grown in Southern China Indo-China, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea and Japan for over a thousand years. Named after a Jesuit priest, George Kamel, who discovered them in the late 17th century, they have been in cultivation so long it is difficult to know where they originated, or which specimen is from the wild or which is a hybrid or cultivar.
Camellias are evergreen shrubs and trees native to East Asia with most species clustered in southwestern China. The name Camellia is taken from the Latinized name of Rev. Georg Kamel (1661–1706) a Czech-born Jesuit lay brother, pharmacist, and missionary to the Philippines. Though there are more than 270 species of camellia, only three gave rise to the thousands of commonly grown cultivars. The ubiquitous beverage tea, in its many forms (green, black, yellow or white), is made from the leaves from Camellia sinensis. The majority of the plants in our Camellia Garden are from a collection of outstanding specimens that Marjorie O’Malley grew at her estate on the San Francisco peninsula. Older residential neighborhoods in San Francisco are full of huge camellias. The large plants are easy to maintain once established. They shade their own roots and require very little extra water.
Camellia Garden
China was called the “mother of gardens” by English plant explorers of the 19th century and contains three-fourths of the species of rhododendrons found in the world. The majority are located in Yunnan Province in southwestern China, and are most abundant between altitudes of 8,000 to 11,500 feet. The large, spectacular blooms range in colors of red, pink, white, and even yellow (R. macabeanum.) Some are a few inches high and hug the ground, others are 100 foot giants.
John McLaren, the first superintendent of Golden Gate Park, loved rhododendrons and supervised the original plantings throughout the Park. Our Rhododendron Garden was designed to suggest a woodland landscape and was built around a fifty year old rhododendron forest. The collection features over three hundred and fifty different rhododendron, including the striking ten-foot tall Rhododendron ‘John McLaren’, which is one of the first to bloom in the Garden each year; its flowers resemble soft roses and seem to glow. This garden is distinguished botanically by the inclusion of companion plants from habitats in Southeast Asia, and contains two important sub groups of Rhododendron (Arborea and Maddenii), also from Southeast Asia that require mild winters.
Rhododendron Garden
What is old is new again, and again, thanks to evolution. One of the most visceral and enjoyable ways to experience time unfolding is in our Ancient Plant Garden. Tunnel your vision from any number of purviews here and you can imagine dinosaurs grazing just beyond the fern fronds. Many non-extinct living plant groups are represented in this garden, some of which are known as ‘living fossils.’
One of the most enjoyable ways to experience time unfolding is in our Ancient Plant Garden. There are groups of plants that are well represented in the fossil record, that still exist today relatively unchanged. These are often referred to as ‘living fossils’, of which many examples can be seen as you journey through the Ancient Plant Garden. The layout of this garden allows visitors to move chronologically through five periods or epochs (Early Devonian, Pennsylvanian, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Eocene), tracing the evolution of plants.
Low growing simple plants such as ferns represent the early Devonian epoch when land plants started to evolve from freshwater green algae, 419 million years ago. Pennsylvanian flora represents a time when plants started growing to tree size, such as the horsetails and tree ferns. During the Jurassic epoch seed plants began to dominate. Here we begin to see Podocarpus, Araucaria, cycads (Cycas spp.) and Agathis. Flowering plants (angiosperms) started to appear during the Cretaceous period. Finally in the Eocene epoch the angiosperms dominated and their leaf size grew due to a warm, moist climate. Magnolia, Mahonia, buttercups (Ranunculaceae) and gingers (Zingiberaceae) are all representative of this time period. As you walk through these ancient plants, allow your mind to tunnel backwards through time and you can easily imagine dinosaurs grazing just beyond the fern fronds!
Ancient Plant Garden
Escape from the usual city environment and immerse yourself in the peaceful Moon Viewing Garden. Filled with beautiful plants and stone pagodas from Japan this private garden will install a zen feeling for your special occasion.
Designed in 1973, this garden was a gift from the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Ikebana International. Reminiscent of traditional Japanese gardens, our Moon Viewing Garden is a place for quiet contemplation and relaxation. Color is used sparingly to illustrate the changing seasons, against a backdrop of varied green foliage that recalls a mountain landscape. An L-shaped wooden deck projects over the pond, a feature typical of aristocratic Moon Viewing gardens, that allows friends to gather and celebrate the September full moon with poems.
Moon Viewing Garden
Get outside to play and learn together at San Francisco Botanical Garden! From garden crafts to bug hunts in the Children’s Garden, to story time and our summer book club at the Library, families with children of all ages will find something to enjoy. To get the latest on program themes, special guests and new activities, check our events calendar.
On the way to the Children’s Garden you will walk along the Coastal California Trail. Here you can see plants growing in a more ‘natural’ setting that are indicative of many coastal habitats found in California. Wooden signs along this trail highlight which type of coastal habitat you are currently walking through.
Tucked at the wild-western end of the Botanical Garden, families with children of all ages can enjoy nature crafts, garden care, outdoor games and exploration in the Children’s Garden – a whole variety of activities to do at your own pace with help from garden staff and teen interns. Visit our education pages for more information about programs. The John Muir Nature Trail, begun in June of 1970, provides an opportunity to learn about California coastal habitats and includes an interpretive deck with several informative plaques as well as a tree-shaded wooden bridge over a small pond.
Children’s Garden
Located in the western section of the Garden between New Zealand and the Redwood Grove is a collection of conifers placed in and growing around a large lawn. Over 30 species of conifers can be found here with highlights including Abies (fir) and Picea (spruce) species and Sequoiadendron giganteum (giant redwood).
Conifer Lawn
Immediately inside the Main Gate, this nearly 2-acre space has recently undergone a $1.7 million-dollar renovation and is now ready to welcome Garden visitors as along with additional programs, exhibitions, and events including rentals for weddings and other celebrations!
Garden staff partnered with local, award-winning design firm Lutsko Associates Landscape to design the new space. The renovation includes new ADA-accessible pathways, new plantings that showcase iconic plants from many of the Garden’s collection, and new irrigation.
Celebration Garden
The Fragrance Garden is an environment that will please all of your senses with a wide collections of the most pleasant and unique smelling plants from around the world.
The Garden of Fragrance was originally designed in 1965 as a garden for visually impaired visitors. It has undergone a few renovations since then to become a place for all visitors to enjoy. Gentle touching of the plants is encouraged in this collection, to release the many pleasing aromas of the plant world. A statue of Saint Francis overlooks a trickling stream that feeds into a small pond. He is the patron saint of San Francisco as well as animals, which maybe a reason why the Garden of Fragrance is often filled with birds enjoying this pleasant, wind protected spot.
Garden of Fragrance
Come run, come picnic, come lay out and relax! The Great Meadow is an inviting expanse that welcomes visitors at the Main Entrance and draws them into the Garden. Start your adventure into our beautiful collections, or simply have some R&R while enjoying the iconic silhouettes of Monterey Cypress along the skyline.
Walking along the paths around the great meadow leads you through an open landscape providing views of the fountain and surrounding trees. The most prominent trees are the mature Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata), Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa), and Blue gum eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) that were planted throughout Golden Gate Park at its inception to help stabilize the sand dunes and provide a welcome windbreak.
Great Meadow
A riot of bold shapes and bold blooms, the Succulent Garden is always a stunning site at any time of the year. Tucked into the hillside behind the Redwood Grove, this stone terraced garden creates the perfect sheltered space for these plants to grow and allow visitors to get close admire these other worldly plants. Come visit in winter months to see this garden with a fiery red backdrop of flowers from the large specimens of Aloe arborescens.
Succulents are appreciated for their varied patterns of growth, ranging from spiny stems to soft leafy rosettes in a variety of green and gray shades, with many offering surprising, extremely colorful flowers. Dedicated in 1971 to the memory of the Garden’s first director Eric Walther, the Succulent Garden is located in an area of the Botanical Garden that is especially dry, sunny and warm. The south facing terraced slope with stone walls and sandy, well drained soil allows desert succulents to thrive even in San Francisco’s cooler moist coastal climate. Literally a popular ‘hot spot’, the Succulent Garden contains a large variety of spiky and not-so spiky specimens from all over the world. Welcome shade is provided by a large Mexican monkey hand tree (Chiranthodendron pentadactylon), whose striking flowers really do resemble little hands reaching out.
In southern Mexico, as the elevation decreases along on the edges of the cloud forest, there is a transition zone to pine and oak woodlands that are very rich in plant species. While not cloud forests, most of these plants still grow well in San Francisco. As you descend further in elevation, woodlands give way to desert and some of those plants are represented in our Succulent Garden. The Dry Mexico Garden however, is located next to the Succulent Garden as a natural transition for those plants of botanical value that are neither desert plants nor cloud forest denizens either. A proliferation of salvias occur in this zone, which are well represented in this garden along with cupheas. The beautiful dogwood Cornus florida var. urbiniana is from this zone and thrives here. There are 4 large specimens in Dry Mexico.
Succulent Garden
Anchoring the west end of the major east-west axial vista, the Jennie B. Zellerbach Garden is one of the most prominent and architecturally important gardens at San Francisco Botanical Garden. This is one of the collections in the Garden that is not focused on a geographic area or a particular horticultural grouping, but was instead designed strictly for its aesthetic appeal. With its arbors and gentle horseshoe design, characterized by flowers with subdued hues, it is an ideal place for quiet contemplation. The Jennie B. Zellerbach Garden was originally established in 1966 by past San Francisco Botanical Garden Society Board President, Jane Coney, in honor of her grandmother. Designed by Ed Williams, a principal of Eckbo, Dean, Austin & Williams (EDAW), his design included a huge Torrey pine that shaded the garden, greatly influencing what plants would thrive there. After the Torrey and other large trees fell, the exposure and growing conditions became quite different. The garden was redesigned in 2001 by Herb Schaal, a protégé of Ed Williams. As Jennie so loved pastel-colored perennials, this remained an emphasis in the redesign.
Zellerbach Garden
Redwoods: the original San Francisco Giants! Stands of old-growth coast redwoods once flourished on more than two million acres in coastal California but have been drastically reduced by extensive logging during the last 150 years. Among the many beautiful spaces within San Francisco Botanical Garden, the Redwood Grove is consistently cited as a favorite among visitors who are surprised to find that they don’t have to leave the City to see these venerable trees. This century-old grove is full of the fog-loving, towering Coast Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens). These trees are the tallest living things on Earth and among the most well-adapted to their growing conditions. Their magnificent height creates an otherworldly sanctuary filled with lush, shade-loving understory plants like sword ferns, flowering currant, and huckleberry. Planted around the turn of the 20th century, our giant coast redwoods are among the oldest trees in the Botanical Garden. More than 100 species of associated plants have been added over the past 40 years to represent key species in a typical redwood forest community. Come explore a Redwood Grove without leaving San Francisco! A downloadable walking trail guide is available which gives an in-depth look at this plant community.
Redwood Grove
The Temperate Asia collection showcases plants from milder climates within the extensive geographic region of Asia. Unlike their tropical counterparts, many of these plants show distinct seasonal change and require watering in San Francisco’s dry summer. Until recently, it was difficult for botanists outside China to obtain specimens making temperate Asia a fertile ground for exciting discoveries.
Temperate Asia
The Main Gate to the Garden is in Golden Gate Park at the corner of 9th Avenue and Lincoln Way. There is another entrance to Botanical Garden further along Martin Luther King Jr. drive, known as the North Gate or Friend Gate, named after Eugene L. Friend, emeritus president of the Recreation and Park Commission and long time supporter of the SFBG.
Main Entrance
Most Bay Area parks reopen, including East Bay lakes
Read More
sf chronicle
sf chronicle
Read More
Most Bay Area parks reopen, including East Bay lakes
Saving SF’s Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park’s grandest building
Read More
CHRONICLE VAULT
TOTAL SF
Read More
49 Mile Scenic Route: Explore
SF with our new map
Pandemic, Wildfires Threaten Funding for California State Parks
SF GATE
6 places to stargaze around the Bay Area during coronavirus
Read More
sf chronicle
sf chronicle
Read More
Santa Cruz’s rail trail inches towards completion
SF GATE
Read More
Pandemic, Wildfires Threaten Funding for California State Parks