San Diego Botanic Garden

General view of the Garden.

Thorny detail.

The San Diego Botanic Garden, formerly Quail Botanical Gardens, is a botanical garden in Encinitas, California, USA. At 37 acres (150,000 m²), the garden includes rare bamboo groves (said to be the largest bamboo collection in the United States), desert gardens, a tropical rainforest, California native plants, Mediterranean climate landscapes, and a subtropical fruit garden. The gardens are open to the public daily. The name of the facility was changed in 2009 to better reflect the garden's status as a regional attraction.^[1]

Explore four miles of garden trails, enjoy restful vistas, flowering trees, majestic palms, and the nation’s largest bamboo collection. Thanks to the mild climate, plants from all over the world thrive. The diverse topography provides a variety of microclimates giving the visitor a sensation of going from a desert environment to a tropical rainforest.

Located 30 minutes north of San Diego in Encinitas, California, San Diego Botanic Garden features numerous exhibits, including rare bamboo groves, desert gardens, a tropical rainforest, California native plants, Mediterranean climate landscapes, succulent gardens, an herb garden, firesafe landscaping, a subtropical fruit garden, and native coastal sage natural areas. The Hamilton Children's Garden was opened in June 2011, the largest interactive children's garden on the West Coast.

Until 1957 the gardens were the private estate of Ruth Baird Larabee, at which time she donated her house and grounds to the County of San Diego. The Quail Botanical Gardens Foundation was established in 1961.

Today the gardens include nearly 3,000 varieties of tropical, subtropical, and California native plants. Collections include the climate-based gardens for the New World and Old World Desert, Coastal sage scrub, Sub-Tropical Fruit, a Pinetum, a Palm Canyon, as well as geographically organized gardens for Africa, Australia, Arid Madagascar Garden, Arid South America, the Canary Islands, Cape South Africa, Central America, the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, New Zealand, the Pan-Tropical Rainforest with a 60-foot waterfall, and the Pacific.

Plant varieties include fuchsias, hibiscus, bamboos, proteas, cacti and succulents, as well as other drought-resistant plants including Australian shrubs. Herbs, water plants, wildflowers, perennials, brugmansias, cork oaks, and palms are also featured.

Of particular interest is the maturing Cork Oak (Quercus suber) forest. Paths wind through a cluster of twisted and majestic trees whose bark has been used for making corks for thousands of years.