Botanic Garden Looks Toward Future : $14-Million Plan Focuses on Improvements, Raising Attendance
The 28-year-old South Coast Botanic Garden on the Palos Verdes Peninsula has devised a $14.1-million master plan designed to carry the garden into the next century by increasing public interest and attendance.
Early phases of the plan focus on improving the appearance of the roadway leading into the garden from Crenshaw Boulevard, increasing parking, expanding the gift shop and creating a large circular entrance plaza leading to various parts of the garden.
“As it sits right now, it has not had a lot of improvement in the last 10 years or so,” said Keith Palmer, vice president for design of the Torrance architectural and planning firm that developed the plan. “When you enter, you do not get a big sense of arrival, and you’re left without a direction to go.”
The plan states that without improvements, attendance at the garden--which is popular with bird-watchers and specializes in drought-resistant vegetation suitable to the peninsula--is not likely to increase. According to the county, about 95,000 people visited the garden during the 1987-88 fiscal year.
During the same year, two other gardens that fall under the county’s jurisdiction welcomed considerably more visitors: Los Angeles State and County Arboretum in Arcadia had 324,309 visitors and Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge, 182,698. A fourth county garden, Robinson Gardens in Beverly Hills, had only 1,867 visitors, but it is small and access is limited.
According to the master plan, which was put together over a two-year period by the firm headed by Neil Stanton Palmer, who is Keith Palmer’s father, the South Coast Botanic Garden “is devoid of educational exhibits, bird-watching stations, eating facilities, lighting for night events and other proven attendance boosters.
The plan was to have been approved Tuesday by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, but it was taken off the agenda because a required environmental assessment had not been made in compliance with the state Environmental Quality Act.
Leon Arnold, assistant director of the county Department of Arboreta and Botanic Gardens, which has jurisdiction over the garden, called it an oversight that should be corrected in time for the supervisors to vote on June 27.
‘Would Be Static’
James J. White, president of the garden’s support foundation, said attendance is building but agreed with Keith Palmer that without improvements, the garden “would be static.”
The foundation, which raises funds and provides volunteers to conduct classes and tours at the garden, paid $25,000 for the study. A six-member foundation committee worked with the Palmer firm to develop the plan.
The plan, which has a 10-year implementation period, will enhance existing specialized areas within the garden, including many groves of trees, flower gardens and a lake, where a Japanese garden and floating teahouse will be added.
It also provides for such new attractions as an amphitheater, a special place for weddings, streams and cascades, a tram system and a cafeteria.
The proposed improvements will be paid for largely through grants from garden-oriented foundations and from corporate and private donations raised by the South Coast Botanic Garden Foundation. White said the foundation is forming a fund-raising group and hiring a professional fund-raiser.
On Top of Landfill
The garden was one of the first botanic gardens in the world located on a sanitary landfill when the first plantings were done by the county in 1961. Ever since, it has dealt with problems caused by the settling of refuse and with poor soil.
But the garden has been studied by horticulturists from all over the world as an example of how a trash heap can be made into something beautiful--with 150,000 plants representing 2,000 different species.
White said the garden, which still has about 40 undeveloped acres, has “a lot of potential. . . . We want people to see us and to come in and spend their day with us. We have a good thing going.”
