The Gardens of Winter

Southern California public gardens are their most spectacular in spring, but they have their winter charms. All contain at least a few plants that bloom only in winter, which would be missed during visits at other times of the year. For many visitors, especially from the Midwest or East, these gardens are going to be surprisingly green and colorful, in contrast to gardens back home.

Gardens up against the mountains or out in the Inland Empire experience winter days so clear they are spooky, with needle-sharp views of the nearby mountains, sometimes covered with snow.

Nestled up against the San Gabriel Mountains, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont is hauntingly quiet and peaceful in midwinter. Dedicated to native California plants, shiny red berries decorate the toyons and fallen leaves line the paths. Sprouting wildflowers and swelling buds whisper the coming of spring.

Gardens near the coast often seem almost spring-like. At tiny Sherman Gardens in Corona del Mar, it will probably not look wintry in the slightest, nor will the weather seem markedly different from, say, April or May. The beds will be full of Iceland poppies and English primrose in their full winter bloom.

Between Christmas Day and New Year’s, a baker’s dozen of the region’s largest and most interesting botanic gardens, arboreta and public gardens will be open (some even on New Year’s Day). While there are a remarkable 24 or more public gardens in the Southland, many are closed for the holidays, for winter breaks or require reservations well in advance.

It’s important to make a distinction between public gardens--often called botanic gardens or arboretums--and simple parks. Public gardens put plants and their uses ahead of sports, picnicking or even hiking.

Many of these gardens started out as places for students to study botany--to learn how to identify different kinds of plants--or to study trees, which is where the terms “botanic garden” and “arboretum” came from. But they have morphed into gardens with a much broader purpose--places where people can go to see what some plant looks like or to get ideas for their own garden.

Thus they are fine places for a stroll, but picnicking is discouraged at most. A couple are considered great for birding, namely Descanso and Conejo Valley botanic gardens, which have large spaces left wild.

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Here then are 13 public gardens to visit at this time of the year. Parking is usually free and admissions vary from nothing to $8.50 for adults. Children are welcome at all of these gardens.

The steep grade of the Glendale freeway leading to La Canada Flintridge hints at why Descanso Gardens is markedly different from other Southland botanic gardens--it’s located in the foothills at 1,500 feet above sea level, which means they can grow special kinds of lilacs, dogwoods, seasonable displays of tulips, and other things that like a touch of cold. (The recent La Canada-Glendale fire missed the garden, according to personnel.) Right now, their 35-acre camellia forest is in bloom. A tram tour ($2 per person) can help you see much of the 160 acres.

Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive, La Canada Flintridge, (818) 952-4401. Regular hours: daily, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Closed Christmas Day. Admission: adults, $5; seniors and students, $3; children 5-12, $1.

There’s much more to see at the Huntington Botanical Gardens than that notorious, stinky corpse flower that was the rage last summer. Famous for its succulent collection, this is a big, 207-acre garden, hard to see in a day. While they’ll probably be pruning the large rose garden, there are tropical gardens, herb gardens, a palm garden and a Japanese garden and bonsai display (there’s a suiseki show of naturally sculpted stones open Dec. 28-30 and Jan. 2). The camellia and the Australian section should have things in bloom.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, (626) 405-2141. Regular hours: Tuesdays-Friday, 1-4:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Closed: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day; extended weekday hours this Monday-Dec. 31, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Admission: adults, $8.50; seniors, $8; students, $6; children under 12, free.

The Arboretum of Los Angeles County is a spacious 127-acre garden divided into many sections (several, including Baldwin Lake, are often used as movie locations). The only way to see it all is to take the tram tour ($2 per person) and then go back to your favorite spots, whether they be the cycad forest, the Meadowbrook cascades and pools (soon to be planted with 5,500 new Japanese iris developed by Kamo Nurseries in Japan) or the newly renovated herb garden. The arboretum has an extensive planting of South African aloes, and they flower at this time of year.

This is also the site of eight dazzling new Sunset Magazine Demonstration Gardens, each a designed jewel.

The Arboretum of Los Angeles County, 301 N. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, (626) 821-3222. Regular hours: daily, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Christmas Day. Admission: adults, $5; seniors and students, $3; children 5-12, $1.

In the college town of Claremont, California native plants grow extremely well on the gravelly alluvial fan from the San Gabriels that Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden is located on (the name refers to an earlier Orange County location). On its 86 acres are lots of trails to follow and plants to see, including a stream-side garden and a big planting of garden cultivars.

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, 1500 N. College Ave., Claremont, (909) 625-8767. Regular hours: daily, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Christmas and New Year’s days. Free.

The Western Municipal Water District chose this site in Riverside for a one-acre demonstration garden that could be a typical backyard, except that it uses only water-thrifty plants, hence the name Landscapes Southern California Style.

Landscapes Southern California Style, 450 Alessandro Blvd., Riverside, (909) 780-4170. Regular hours: daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Christmas and New Year’s days. Free.

Riverside is also home to the UC Riverside Botanic Gardens, which includes cactus and succulent gardens, a subtropical fruit orchard, even a geodesic dome lath house filled with cycads and palms. Their collections include many winter bloomers, including several salvias flowering for the holidays.

UC Riverside Botanic Gardens, Riverside, (909) 787-4650. Regular hours: daily, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Christmas and New Year’s days. Free.

Surrounding the 1894 Heritage House and old orange grove at Cal State Fullerton are the 26 acres of planted gardens of the Fullerton Arboretum, which include tropicals and handsome drought-resistant plantings.

Fullerton Arboretum, Associated Road at Yorba Linda Boulevard, Fullerton, (714) 278-3579. Regular hours: daily, 8 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Closed Christmas and New Year’s days. Free.

The compact and cozy Sherman Gardens in Corona del Mar--exactly 2.2 acres from curb to curb--is perhaps the most impeccably maintained garden in the Southland, with dramatic displays of seasonal color, a greenhouse with koi pond, plus a lofty lath house.

Sherman Library and Gardens, 2647 East Coast Highway, Corona del Mar, (949) 673-2261. Regular hours: daily, 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Christmas and New Year’s days. $3.

A five-acre garden originally designed by legendary landscape architect Ralph Cornell surrounds the 1844 adobe house at Rancho Los Cerritos. Includes a large planting of natives and some trees planted in the mid-1800s.

Rancho Los Cerritos Historic Site, 4600 Virginia Road, Long Beach, (562) 570-1755. Regular hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 1-5 p.m.; closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Free.

South Coast Botanic Garden is another big (87-acre) garden where tram tours (weekends only, $1.50 each) are a welcome way to get an overview. Built on a landfill in the early ‘60s, it now has a pretty rose and flower garden (which may still be in bloom), a children’s garden, a fuchsia garden, a water-wise garden, plus a pond and ducks.

South Coast Botanic Garden, 26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes Peninsula, (310) 544-1948. Regular hours: daily, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Christmas Day. Admission: adults, $5; seniors and students, $3; children 5-12, $1.

The compact, seven-acre Mildred E. Mathias Botanic Garden--at the very edge of UCLA, right next to Westwood Village--has a canyon-bottom stream, tropicals, and a cactus and succulent collection. On the west canyon walls are the biggest and most beautiful Mindanao gums (Eucalyptus deglupta) in the state, with their spectacular multicolored bark. Free one-hour docent-led drop-in tours on the first Sunday of the month at 1 and 2 p.m., including Jan. 2.

The Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden, at the corner of Le Conte and Hilgard avenues, Westwood, (310) 825-1260. Regular hours: daily, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Free.

Los Angeles County’s Virginia Robinson Gardens was the six-acre, 1911 Beverly Hills estate of the J.W. Robinsons department store heiress. Camellias and azaleas are blooming now in the Italian Terrace garden, and there are sky blue anchusa flowering under citrus. Much renovation has been done recently, but parking is still very limited so there are severe restrictions on visits (winter is a good time to visit since reservations are easier to get).

Virginia Robinson Gardens, Beverly Hills, (310) 276-5367. Regular hours: Tuesday-Thursday for tours (of up to 50 people), at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., and at 10 a.m. only on Friday. Closed Christmas and New Year’s days. Reservations are required but can be made at any time. Admission: adults, $8; seniors and children (under 6), $4.

A new, all-volunteer Conejo Valley Botanic Garden of 35 acres in Thousand Oaks has trails that follow a creek though natural habitats, plantings of California natives and salvias, a drought-resistant meadow and a rare-fruit orchard.

Conejo Valley Botanic Garden, adjacent to Conejo Community Park, Thousand Oaks, (805) 494-7630. Open every day, including Christmas, 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Free.

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Public Plantings

1. Descanso Gardens

2. Huntington Botanical Gardens

3. The Arboretum of Los Angeles County

4. Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden

5. Landscapes of Southern California Style

6. UC Riverside Botanic Gardens

7. Fullerton Arboretum

8. Sherman Gardens

9. Rancho Los Cerritos

10. South Coast Botanic Garden

11. Mildred E. Mathias Botanic Garden

12. Virginia Robinson Gardens

13. Conejo Valley Botanic Garden

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Write to Robert Smaus, SoCal Living, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053; fax to (213) 237-4712; or e-mail robert.smaus@latimes.com.