In the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in La Cañada Flintridge, north of Los Angeles, California is the largest collection of camellias in North America. Descanso’s 150 acres are filled with native California plants, a rose garden, flowering cherry trees and camellias planted along winding pathways which makes it a peaceful place to walk […]
Opened in 2007, this “People’s Garden” invites visitors of all ages and abilities to create and to explore meaningful connections to plants and nature at their own pace. The journey began in 1991 when a small group of midcoast Maine residents dreamed of building a world-class public garden on 148 acres of rocky coastal forest […]
A wet Saturday morning dawned for the May “Saturdays in the Garden” lecture recently. “The Garden” in the lecture title is Loudoun’s Extension Master Gardener Demonstration Garden at Ida Lee Park and Recreation Center. In this space, our volunteer organization to grow both ornamental and vegetable gardens using the most current research-based techniques from Virginia’s land […]
The Many Faces of the Albuquerque BioPark Botanic Garden Our Botanic Garden consists of about 13 recognizable gardens: Pollinator, Spanish-Moorish, Jardin Redondo, Xeric, Curandera, High Desert Rose, Japanese, Children’s Fantasy, G-scale Railroad, Deserts of the Southwest, Heritage Farm and Orchard, Cottonwood Gallery, and the Mediterranean and Desert Conservatories. We will take a closer look at […]
In 1843, Luke Gannon and his family, immigrants from Ireland, built a log cabin in what is now Crystal Lake, Illinois. The restored cabin was moved to Union, Illinois in 1966 on the grounds of the McHenry County Historical Society. Two years ago, in 2015, the Historical Society asked the University of Illinois Extension Master […]
An essential part of a public botanical garden is visitor education and being a docent is my small way of helping with that mission. It is about as stress-free as anything could be. But it was with some trepidation that I heard Cheri V., our education curator say, “The garden manager wants to see you.” […]
Sarah Hedean is the Living Collections Manager at Smithsonian Gardens. I sat down to talk with her on August 9, 2017 about her career, the field of horticulture and some of her current undertakings with Smithsonian Gardens. For part two of our interview, on the subject of bluebird nesting boxes at the Smithsonian Gardens greenhouses, […]
The Van Vleck House & Gardens originated as a 12-acre private estate more than 140 years ago when Joseph Van Vleck Sr and his family moved to Montclair from Brooklyn in 1868. Like many successful businessmen of the era, Joseph Van Vleck Sr came to the suburbs seeking a refuge from industrial living and brought […]
Omar B., a zone gardener with the New York Restoration Project (NYRP), shares entries from the journal he keeps about his work with the environmental non-profit founded by Bette Midler in 1995 to preserve and transform public green spaces in New York for all citizens to enjoy. His writing gives us a day-to-day peak inside […]
The Poquoson Learning Garden is located at the Poquoson Museum, the former sixteen acre William Freeman Dryden farm in the City of Poquoson, Virginia. The museum campus contains a circa 1900 farm house, agricultural out buildings, frontage along the marshes of Topping Creek and a country store known as ‘Miss Becky’s Store’ that served local […]
Nestled within the thirty acres of one of the most beautiful zoos sits a small parcel of land dedicated to education, conservation and promotion of gardening at the Santa Barbara Zoo. The idea of an onsite garden had been bounced back and forth among staff for a number of years. After the completion of a […]
“The Hill” is a steep, woodland slope at the corner of Nelson Street and College Parkway in Rockville, Maryland. The Garden Club of College Gardens (GCCG) has landscaped and maintained a garden there since the 1970s. The Club is part of the National Capital Area Garden Clubs, Inc. and draws its approximately fifty-three members from […]
The Arboretum is located in Sandpoint, Idaho on Lake Pend Oreille. In addition to the beautiful lake, there is a mountain resort for winter skiing. Locals often observe, “we’re almost in Canada,” in an area referred to as the Panhandle. It has stunning scenery, four seasons, and residents who cherish the quality of life. It […]
As a student at New College of Florida in Sarasota, I fell in love with Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. Fellow students and I visited to luxuriate in orchid-filled nooks and get away from campus. When campus was steamy and oppressive, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens felt refreshing and rejuvenating. As a Spanish-language literature major, I never […]
I live in South Bend Indiana, and most likely always will. Here is the story of a garden in my community. Here in South Bend we have a wonderful Japanese-style garden that has a good backstory. The Japanese garden was built near a park, near a public pool, and the name of the garden is […]