Seeking out  Botanical Gardens when we travel has been almost an obsession for me.  Seeing the plants in their native environments, seeing how others have chosen to combine them in gardens or allow them to naturalize, and seeing how others structure their gardens has long held a fascination for me.  

In 1996 I became a founding member of the California Central Valley Horticultural Foundation, a non-profit group with a mission of building a world class botanical garden in the Sacramento area.  Our vision of this garden would tell the stories of the people and plants that have come from all over the world and now call California "home".  It would show the contributions of the native people and plants as well as the immigrant peoples, their flora and their technology, that combined to form the California of today. Our group has served as a task force to create a vision for the garden, to build community support for the Idea, to research potential sites, define the stakeholders, and  put together a viable business plan to make it happen.  For more information on this exciting endeavor please visit:  www.thecaliforniagarden.org  or contact me at rjaland14@comcast.net  or  the Current Board President, Frances Brandon at fab70@comcast.net

The California Garden Conceptual Plan  Click here for a power point presentation about the proposed California Garden. Click on the slides to change to the next.