Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens

One of my stops while on vacation last week was the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens. The 65 acre botanical gardens are located in Mission Canyon and features over a 1000 species. The video below explains more about the gardens.



The gardens were organized by different native habitats of California. The map below shows the layout and sequence of the garden.

Trail Map (source)

The first garden upon entering was the meadow section. The meadow section was contained by a looping path. I was impressed by the diversity of native shrubs and grasses in the meadow section. In particular I liked the contrast of the grey shrubs against the greens and browns of the other meadow species.

Meadow Path

Native Shrubs and Grasses

The trail from the meadow section led us down a steep ravine into a shady canyon full of large redwoods. The large trees managed to block out most of sun but where the sun did break through it made beautiful shadows on the ferns and clover that covered the canyon floor. The clover had some sort of symbiotic relationship with the redwood trees. We flowed rocky stream along the right side of the garden path to the next garden feature. 

The Understory 

Redwood Trail

The next feature of the botanical gardens was the historic aqueduct. it served as the main water source for the Santa Barbara  Mission. The aqueduct provided great views down the canyon. 

Historic Aqueduct

My favorite section of the botanical gardens was oaks section. I was amazed by canopy created by the Californian Live Oaks. The distorted trunks were unlike any trees I have seen before on the east coast. 

Oak Canopy

There were several other great sections of the garden including a section on the plants of the channel islands and a desert section. 

Desert Section