Quarryhill Botanical
Garden
Glen Ellen, California
June 2008
This 20 acre garden was
founded in 1987.
Collections are concentrated on the flora of East Asia with
numerous species from China and Japan. The garden has
sponsored a number of seed collection trips to Asia and
most of the plants in the garden’s collections are raised
from these seeds.
The entrance trail takes you past a planting of beautiful
shrub roses, up a gently sloping hill. A wheelchair might
have trouble but it is easy walking.
The rose is Rosa soulieana,
the first of a number of shrub roses you will see along the
trails.
The first feature you come to
is an arbor in a densely planted island.
The arbor is covered in a
beautiful vine I've never seen before, a legume
called Millettia
dielsiana, covered with stunning pink, pea-like
flowers.
The trails then wind through
forest and clearings, all planted with Asian natives. Of
course there are some California natives but it seems like
a slice of Asian woodland. It's really impressive how much
has been accomplished here in only twenty years. The site
was originally filled with quarries so there was probably
little native vegetation to deal with, but the growth of
these Asian plants is impressive.
One of the major plant
collections here is lilies, and they are scattered
throughout the site. Its not often I've seen lilies
naturalized on a site and it makes a great impression.
There are two ponds on the
site, an upper and a lower connected by a waterfall. The
topography of the site is really visible as you look over
the ponds.
This is a beautiful, young
garden with an amazing collection of Asian plants. It
really needs to work on labeling and interpretation. Their
self-guided tour has some great information in it, but only
talks about 19 plants. Otherwise, only a small percentage
of the plants have identification labels. Some interpretive
material telling about their major collections, and why
they have them, would also be a great addition. These small
criticisms shouldn't deter anyone from visiting though. We
spent three hours wandering happily through the site.
To see more photos of Quarryhill, click here.
Click here to visit the official Quarryhill
website.