California Beaches Blog

We’ve tried to visit and see many of the gardens of California, though time doesn’t always permit for such wonderful adventures. With only a few hours you can drop by the smaller gardens and explore, or give yourself a half a day or more to enjoy the large gardens that grace sunny Southern California.

If you don’t have much time, Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona del Mar is quite easy to tackle in just an hour. It features some unique palms, tropical flowers, and blossoming flowers that are lovely to look at. Located right on Coast Highway just south of Fashion Island shopping mall in Newport Beach, you can easily drop by during a visit, or on your way to Laguna Beach, Legoland in Carlsbad or San Diego.

Several additional small gardens worth a look are located in Long Beach at two historic ranchos operated by the city. Rancho Los Alamitos and Rancho Los Cerritos both offer garden settings with mature trees, a unique bamboo forest and some succulents and flowering plants. The buildings themselves offer rich histories into early California’s rancho era, and the gardens provide somewhat authentic experiences of what they may have looked like over 100 years ago.  Each of the rancho gardens is easily covered in about an hour. These types of experiences are great when you have mobility issues, or have children who become antsy.

The larger gardens that you need time to explore provide half day and day trips during a vacation, weekend garden getaways, or just a local jaunt in “your own backyard” in Southern California.

Our favorite Southern California gardens is the Huntington Library and Gardens, which features over 14,000 unique garden plants in over a dozen garden themed areas that include Japanese Garden, Rose Garden, Shakespeare Garden, Camellia Garden, Jungle Garden, Palm Garden, Chinese Gardens, Subtropical Garden, Lily Ponds, Herb Garden, Desert Garden, Children’s Garden, Australian Garden…read more