San Diego Botanic Garden Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids San Diego Botanic Garden
Quail Botanical Gardens
General view of the Garden.
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Type	Botanical garden
Location	Encinitas, California, United States
Area	37 acres (150,000 m²)

The San Diego Botanic Garden is a beautiful botanical garden located in Encinitas, California, United States. It used to be called the Quail Botanical Gardens. This amazing garden covers about 37 acres, which is like 28 football fields! It's home to many different kinds of plants from all over the world. You can find rare bamboo groves, sunny desert gardens, and even a tropical rainforest here. The garden is open to visitors from Wednesday to Sunday, 10 AM to 5 PM. Its name was changed in 2009 to show that it's a big attraction for the whole San Diego area.

What You Can See at the Garden
History of the Garden
Plants from Around the World
- The Cork Oak Forest
Visiting Information
- Admission Prices
Gallery
See also

What You Can See at the Garden

The San Diego Botanic Garden has many cool areas to explore. It's located about 30 minutes north of San Diego. You can discover:

Rare bamboo groves, which are said to be the largest collection in the United States!
Desert gardens with plants that love dry weather.
A tropical rainforest that feels like a jungle.
Plants that are native to California.
Gardens with plants from Mediterranean climates.
Special gardens just for succulent plants and herbs.
A subtropical fruit garden where you can see different kinds of fruit trees.

In June 2011, the Hamilton Children's Garden opened. It's the biggest interactive children's garden on the West Coast! This area is super fun for kids to learn and play among nature.

History of the Garden

The land where the garden now sits used to be the private home of Ruth Baird Larabee. In 1957, she gave her house and land to the County of San Diego. A group called the Quail Botanical Gardens Foundation was started in 1961.

Then, in March 1970, the Quail Botanic Garden officially opened to the public. Many years later, in 2009, its name was changed to the San Diego Botanic Garden. This new name helped people know it was a big, important garden for the whole region.

Thorny detail.

Plants from Around the World

Today, the garden has more than 5,000 different types of plants! These plants come from all over the world, including tropical places, subtropical areas, and even plants native to California.

Some of the special plant collections you can find include:

A tropical plant exhibit inside the Dickinson Family Education Conservatory, which opened in 2020.
Gardens based on climate, like the New World and Old World Desert areas.
A Coastal sage scrub area, showing plants from California's coast.
A Sub-Tropical Fruit garden.
A Pinetum, which is a collection of pine trees.
A Palm Canyon, full of different kinds of palms.

The garden also has areas organized by where the plants come from. You can visit sections for plants from:

Africa
Australia
Arid Madagascar
Arid South America
The Canary Islands
Cape South Africa
Central America
The Himalayas
The Mediterranean region
The Middle East
New Zealand
A Pan-Tropical Rainforest that even has a 60-foot waterfall!

You'll see many interesting plants like fuchsias, hibiscus, different kinds of bamboos, and proteas. There are also many cacti and succulent plants, along with other plants that don't need much water, like Australian shrubs. The garden also features herbs, water plants, wildflowers, and beautiful brugmansias.

The Cork Oak Forest

One very interesting part of the garden is the growing forest of Cork Oak trees (Quercus suber). Paths wind through these twisted and majestic trees. In other parts of the world, cork oaks are harvested for their bark, which is used to make corks for wine bottles, and even for purses, jewelry, and wallets!