The California garden tour : the 50 best gardens to visit in the Golden State

**A fantastic garden journey that only California can provide** In __The California Garden Tour__, veteran travel writer Donald Olson highlights 50 outstanding public gardens and provides all the information you need to make the most of your visit. From San Francisco and the East Bay to Palm Springs and San Diego, Olson includes iconic gardens like the Getty Center, new favorites like Alcatraz, and uniquely Californian destinations like Lotusland and Sunnylands. The easy-to-use format includes visitor information, an evocative description, and full color photography for each garden. The 50 California gardens Olson profiles in this guide fall into four basic types: estate gardens that were once private and are now public, botanical gardens, parks, and art gardens. To set the context, he presents a brief history of gardening in California discussing native peoples; the mission era; Beaux-Arts, Spanish colonial revival, and the country place era; the Depression and the Works Progress Administration (WA); and postwar and midcentury modern gardens. He arranges the gardens geographically, first into north and south, then into smaller regions. --Publisher's descripton. San Francisco & peninsula East bay Sonoma & vicinity Central & north coast Los Angeles & vicinity Pasadena & vicinity South coast Santa Barbara & vicinity Palm Springs & vicinity San Diego & vicinity.