San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden
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The San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden, when completed, will be a 150 acre (60 ha) garden displaying the diverse plant life of five Mediterranean climate zones of the world; California, Chile, Australia, South Africa and the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The grounds for the future garden are located in El Chorro Regional Park, in rolling hills on the central coast of California, between San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay, California, USA.
The first idea for the garden began in 1989, and in 1991 the Friends of SLO Botanical Garden was incorporated. In 1993, a 40-year renewable lease for 150 acres (60 ha) was signed with San Luis Obispo County. The master plan was completed in 1998, as was the greenhouse and nursery. Work is now underway to build the entire garden. When complete, the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden will be one of the largest botanical gardens in the western United States, with the following areas:
- The California garden will be 47.40 acres (19.2 ha) with nine collections: oak woodland, mixed evergreen forest, grassland, coastal scrub, chaparral, sycamore glen, agave-yucca rise, riparian forest and wetland. It will display specimens from Baja California northward to a point about halfway between San Francisco and Eureka.
- The Mediterranean Basin garden 11.50 acres (4.7 ha) will be organized into three collections; oasis, Canary Island crest, and Mediterranean slope.
- The Chile garden 20.43 acres (8.3 ha) will be devoted to the flora of central Chile with seven separate collections; araucaria crest, southern beech forest, coastal matorral, puya palisades, Chilean arroyo, Chilean mixed forest and Chilean palm grove.
- The South Africa garden 7.63 acres (3.1 ha) will contain three collections: Cape succulents (the Cape of Good Hope area is home to the richest succulent flora in the world), floral carpet of the Cape and a tapestry of diverse vegetation woven into a continuous shrub land.
- The South and Southern Western Australia garden 12.50 acres (5.1 ha) will hold four collections from two areas of Australia; a garden of the protea family, kwongan (small groupings of eucalyptus woodlands and associated thickets), karri, marri, and jarrah forest (a display of giant eucalyptus trees that rank among the tallest trees in the world) and grass tree slope.
- The Orchard, Vineyard and Entry Plantings 12 acres (4.9 ha) will highlight plants of economic importance - orchards of grapes, walnuts, pistachios, olives and other productive plants of the Mediterranean climate areas with naturalized flowering ground covers from each region. It will also include an avenue of Mediterranean cypress intermixed with a broad leaf evergreen canopy lines the entry road.
- The Gardens of Exploration 11 acres (4.5 ha) will contain groupings of demonstration gardens. Five general areas have been identified: horticultural therapy, ecology, biology, cultural influences and horticultural opportunities.
