The Botantical Gardens in Mission Canyon

C & L wanted to go visit the Santa Barbara Botantical Gardens.  I wasn't so keen because I *thought* that meant a greenhouse with exotic plants that stood no chance of surviving the North American climate anywhere let alone at North of Nowhere, where I live.

I was wrong -- and delightfully so.  It turns out botantical gardens are usually a display of Native plants in their natural setting!  In this case, Mission Canyon which is gorgeous.  I recommend a visit if you are ever in Santa Barbara.

I thought this wood structure with an earthen roof was interesting.  There was something like 8 miles of trails you could take in the canyon.  We went for about 2 miles or so.  A lot of it was in the floor of the canyon next to Mission Creek and the forest was so heavy, all my pictures came out very dark.  But this place is well worth the walk!

This was on the hillside and it was a flowering Yucca plant.  Now that doesn't seem so spectacular until you realize that the 3 rocks you see at the left is a BENCH for three people to sit on.  Yep, this was almost 10 feet tall!  Amazing.

A shot of the hillside trail going down into the Canyon.

The Canopy with the moss on the trees and the gnarled branches.

A familiar sight from my visit last year to Northern California.  This is a redwood with L standing next to it.  It is eighty years old.  They had a small stand of redwoods established at the Botantical Gardens.  The fact it has survived tells me Santa Barbara/Mission Canyon must get a lot of fog because that is how redwoods get their moisture.  They get it from their branches not their roots.

The hillside above us.

One of the things I did this vacation was pick up a lot of postcards, brochures and not take quite so many pictures.  Unfortunately, all of those are copyrighted and I cannot post those.  From this hillside we dropped down through the canyon and crossed the creek and went up the hillside to the interpretive center.  Going up the hillside was a Japanese Tea house where you could actually stop and have tea in a small one room structure.  We didn't stop but it was interesting.

Happy Fourth of July to everyone!