Huntington LIbrary Desert Garden in San Marino

The Hunt­ing­ton Library, Botan­ic Gar­den and Art Muse­um Desert Gar­den — Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Every May, we cel­e­brate Nation­al Pub­lic Gar­dens Day and it’s nev­er too late for you to explore one of the over 500 pub­lic gar­dens in the Unit­ed States.

The Amer­i­can Pub­lic Gar­dens Asso­ci­a­tion (APGA) teamed up with Rain Bird to con­tin­ue its cam­paign to raise pub­lic aware­ness of Amer­i­ca’s pub­lic gar­dens and their impor­tant role in pro­mot­ing envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship and edu­ca­tion, plant and water con­ser­va­tion, and edu­ca­tion in com­mu­ni­ties nationwide.

Visit a Garden in Los Angeles

There are plen­ty of pub­lic gar­dens in Los Ange­les to vis­it all year round! Check out The Hunt­ing­ton Library & Botan­i­cal Gar­dens in San Mari­no (cac­tus gar­den shown above), Des­can­so Gar­dens in La Cana­da Flintridge or the South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den in Palos Verdes. Find a gar­den near you at publicgardens.org.

 

Best Botanic Spaces in the United States

While there are a few won­der­ful pub­lic gar­dens in the Los Ange­les area alone, there are a pletho­ra to vis­it around the Unit­ed States from Flori­da to Hawaii. Here are a few more favorites:

Long­wood Gar­dens (Ken­nett Square, PA): Famous for its daz­zling foun­tain shows, Long­wood fea­tures a vast col­lec­tion of plants, includ­ing trop­i­cal rain­forests, out­door gar­dens, and a mag­nif­i­cent conservatory.

New York Botan­i­cal Gar­den (Bronx, NY): This urban oasis hous­es diverse plant col­lec­tions, includ­ing the Enid A. Haupt Con­ser­va­to­ry, a mag­nif­i­cent glasshouse with trop­i­cal and desert plants.

Mis­souri Botan­i­cal Gar­den (St. Louis, MO): Found­ed in 1859, this his­toric gar­den fea­tures diverse plant col­lec­tions, includ­ing the icon­ic Cli­ma­tron, a geo­des­ic dome hous­ing a trop­i­cal rainforest.

Nation­al Trop­i­cal Botan­i­cal Gar­den (Kauai,Hawaii): Locat­ed in two parts of the island on the North and South Shores, vis­i­tors learn about how the ancient Hawai­ian peo­ple used plants for every­day life and what was brought to the island by its inhab­i­tants from oth­er parts of the South Pacific.

These are just a few exam­ples of the many incred­i­ble pub­lic gar­dens across the Unit­ed States. No mat­ter your inter­ests, you’re sure to find a gar­den that inspires and delights.