Japanese Tea Garden, San Francisco

The second garden on my San Francisco belated birthday weekend was the Japanese Tea Garden.

The Ticket Gate

The Main Gate

Located in Golden Gate Park, it is the oldest public Japanese garden in the U.S. It was built originally as a Japanese village for the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition.

The garden's history (see website for details) is sad. Created by Makato Hagiwara and maintained by his family until they were forced with other Japanese Americans into internments camps in 1942. They were not allowed back after the war.

The garden is small (approx 5-acres), but beautiful and well-tended. There are many pagodas, stone lanterns, an arched drum bridge and koi pond.

This garden requires a leisurely pace, so that you enjoy it's small size to the fullest and linger long enough to enjoy the garden from all angles. 

This little bugger was pulling up mouthfuls of moss for his/her nest.

The drum bridge is an especially popular place for a picture. Almost impossible in fact to get a picture without many others trying to do just the same thing.This garden attracts a lot of tourists, so going early or at an off time might be good.

The Moon Bridge

There is a tea house that serves tea and snacks. The gift shop was a nice place to pick up a little souvenir Lucky Cat.

Palm Trees?!?

The pine was being held up by the pole.

San Francisco Botanical Garden

I just spent a lovely belated birthday weekend in San Francisco with some of my favorite people.

The weather was sunny, breezy with temperatures in the mid 70's/low 80s. Just perfect!  I'm sure this weather was planned just for me. 

Since it was my "birthday", I was escorted to a few gardens in Golden Gate Park. My travel companions indulged me and my garden lust and I sure took the opportunity to let my plant-geek flag fly.

The first place we went was the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum. There were 55 acres of gardens with 8,000 different kinds of plants for us to enjoy.

In the collection, were plants from around the globe and an extensive California Native Plant Garden and a century-old Redwood Grove.

Some of the other places represented were the Andean Cloud Forest, South Africa, Southeast Asian Cloud forest, Mesoamerican Cloud Forest, Australia, New Zealand and Chile.

There was also a Succulent Garden, Ancient Plant Garden, Garden of Fragrance, a Rhododendron Garden and a few others.

Mild weather, wet winters and dry summers, along with the coastal fog, give this garden a range of climates that exist in few other gardens in the world.

It took several hours to see everything and it was well worth it.

Many of the Protea type plants were bloomed out for the summer but I managed to find a few scattered flowers. I look forward to seeing this garden in other seasons.

I apologize for not having the names of everything. I documented what I could - I was just too crazed running around taking pictures of everything.

Leucospermum 'California Sunrise'

 

Fremontodendron 'California Glory'

King Protea

Haemanthus coccineus (Blood Flower)

 

Grove of Rhapalostylis sapida (Nikau Palm)

Orange colored Lobelia tupa?

Succulent Garden

Opuntia Ficus-Indica

Cotyledon orbiculata

Banksia occidentalis (Red Swamp Banksia)

Lapageria rosea (Chilean Bell Flower)

Grevillea rosemarinifolia

Banksia praemorsa (Cut-Leaf Banksia)

Grevillea victoriae (Royal Grevillea)

Helmholtzia glaberima (Stream Lily)

Banksia serrata (Old Man Banksia)

Grevillea thelmanniana

Isopogon formosus (Rose Cone Flower)

Ancient Plant Garden