Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, established in 1927, is the largest botanic garden dedicated to California native plants. Spread across 86 acres in Claremont, California, the Garden is located approximately 35 miles east of Los Angeles. Nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, the Garden offers beautiful mountain vistas.
The Garden displays about 2000 taxa of California plants and includes those native to the California Floristic Province as a whole. This region extends into southern Oregon, far western Nevada and extensively into Baja California, Mexico. Docents lead tours of the Garden periodically. Guidebooks and brochures are available at the California Garden Shop.
The Garden is laid out in three distinct areas. Indian Hill Mesa is a large flat-topped hill of dense clay soils, heavily planted with mature cultivars and wild species of native plants. Some of the most prominent species are wild lilacs and Manzanitas. The mesa is home to the California Courtyard, California Natives Container Garden and California Cultivar Garden—three of our popular venues for social and business events. The East Alluvial Gardens are found at the base of the eastern edge of the Indian Hill Mesa include the Desert Garden and the Coastal Dune and California Channel Islands collections. The Tongva Village interpretive site and the Majestic Oak are both located in the Alluvial Gardens. The northern 55 acres is home to the Plant Communities with displays of some of our most impressive specimens in the entire collection. The large serene groves of Four-needled Pinyon, the spring-blooming California Flannel Bushes and distinct boojum trees are found here.
