PV Botanical gardens slated for makeover
Adrienne Lao, CEO of the South Coast Botanical Gardens Foundation sits on a bench in the garden’s main lawn. Photo by David Rosenfeld
The South Coast Botanical Gardens could be the Peninsula’s best kept secret. Drive up the twisty entrance road lined with trees and it opens up into an 87-acre wonderland.
Lately, though, the garden has needed some work, so its board of directors has embarked on a dramatic redesign that includes a new entrance, a stunning new rose garden, an expanded Japanese garden and a new children’s area. The changes are planned to begin in June, but the garden still needs the public’s help through input and to meet a $1.8 million capital campaign goal set for next June.
“Right now we’re entering a time period in the garden’s history where there’s almost another reincarnation of what’s going on,” said director Adrienne Lao. “We’re really responding to what the community is saying they want to come here and do.”
After several public meetings led by members of Oasis Design Group, the garden’s board will be choosing a vision plan for the next 25 years.
The garden began in 1960 after two previous incarnations. First it was a mine for diatomaceous earth and later a landfill. Today, much of the ground remains unstable because the earth beneath it is still settling, which is why for instance the road leading to the entrance is so bumpy.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said board chair Robin Hill. “We really want to do a lot more outreach to the community. It’s still the most common thing I hear about it is that it’s an undiscovered jewel.”
The first project to be completed will be a new rose garden. Designs for the space call for creating several areas within the rose garden: one for sculptures, another with a drought tolerant setting and a space for weddings and other events.
“Our objective is to have it be a real destination,” Hill said.
Also slated for design is an expanded kids club and family programming. Over the summer the garden hosts concerts for children and special events.
Visitors to the garden enjoy a range of activities from special lectures on horticulture and animal habitat to exercise opportunities like walking the roughly three-quarter mile loop or tai chi and yoga on the lawn. Others just prefer to sit and take in the surroundings. On Saturdays, the garden operates a tram for less physically inclined.
Roughly 95,000 people each year visit the garden, which is jointly operated by Los Angeles County and a non-profit foundation. It has more than 4,500 members with about 800 added each year.
“The idea is just to really make it so that everything we do speaks to the mission of the garden to provide that unique horticultural experience, and speaks to our mission of sustainability and environmental repurposing,” Lao said. ER