California Botanic Garden

The inspiration

California Botanic Garden grew out of Susanna Bixby Bryant's worry, back in 1927, that development was squeezing California's native plants and their habitats¹ . After a fire and floods devastated the original Orange County site in the 1940s, the garden moved to Claremont in 1951, where it has carried on its programs of research, education, and display ever since¹ .

Who's behind it

Susanna Bixby Bryant founded the garden, consulted leading botanists of her day, and took personal responsibility for its direction for many years¹ .

What to order

• The Grow Native Nursery: a retail nursery you can shop without paying garden admission, useful if you want natives of your own .^3,2
• The Children's Woodland: a free-form nature play space with a maple-syrup-scented sensory garden, hammocks under live oaks, and logs and wood for building forts .⁴
• The Poppy Shop: a gift store at the entrance, also open without garden admission .³

Why you should try it

At 86 acres devoted entirely to California natives, roughly 35 miles east of Los Angeles in Claremont, this is a chance to see the state's flora as a whole landscape rather than nursery cuttings^2,5 . Come for a slow walk under the old live oaks, then leave with a native plant from the nursery and an idea of what it could become^2,3,5 .