Theodore Payne Foundations is a non-profit dedicated to promoting the use of California native plants in horticulture. Their grounds feature multiple native demonstration gardens and a native plant nursery. On the hill to the east they have a wild fire prevention demonstration garden and a wildflower garden.

Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants

A Japanese Garden created from 1935-1945. Features a tea house. It is located directly across the street from Arlington Garden. Admission is restricted due to covid, advanced registration is highly recommended.

Storrier-Stearns Japanese Garden

A 5 acre park featuring art gardens, fruit trees, demonstration vegetable gardens, and a visitor center.

Stoneview Nature Center

It possesses beautiful specimens of California Fuschia, San Diego sagebrush, San Diego sunflowers, Honey Mesquite and California Sycamores. There are a couple of bioswales, and really beautiful structures used for framing.

San Diego's Old Town Native Demonstration Garden

S. Mark Taper Life Science Botanical Garden at Pierce College

A park created in partnership between the Tataviam tribe and San Fernando Parks & Rec. Features a walking trail that winds through open spaces landscaped with drought tolerant plants and trees connecting: a model of a Tataviam tribe village, a Japanese tea house, a Mission style plaza, a small amphitheatre and the restoration of a historic water tower.

Rudy Ortega Park

California American Water's demonstration garden outside of their location in Rosemead, CA. Their garden uses a mix of cacti, succulents, and California native plants to demonstrate water tolerant landscaping.

Rosemead Chamber of Commerce

Placerita Nature Center

A 5-acre water conservation park that is located where Arcadia, Irwindale, Monrovia and El Monte all meet, on Mungi Lake. It features willows, oak trees and other native plants. Signage describes many of the native plants and it also features bioswales.

Peck Road Water Conservation Park

Native Plant Demonstration at Covina Public Library

This demonstration garden was created by the city of Monterrey Park to demonstrate multiple different styles of landscaping that is drought tolerant. They have signs to explain each section of the park. It also features two bioswales. It was inaugurated June 2, 2017

Monterey Park Demonstration Garden

Located just before Monrovia's Old Town from the south, Grow Monrovia's Demonstration Garden features a hugelkutur, bioswale, and native plants. It demonstrates how common commercial parkways can utilize native plants to achieve an inviting space.

Monrovia Native Plant Demonstration Garden

A community garden demonstrating growing your own produce in beautify raised beds. A great spot to check out if walking or driving by. They also collect food waste for compost and do occasional workshops.

Monrovia Community Garden

A 2/3 acre botanical garden inside Polliwog Park in Manhattan Beach. A demonstration garden exhibiting drought-tolerant plants, mostly local California natives, and a certified nature habitat. Free admission. Construction started in 1994, formed a nonprofit organization in 1997, opened on Earth Day, 2001. It 

Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden

Native plant demonstration garden encircled the visitor’s center of the Madrona Marsh preserve. The Madrona Marsh is 43 acres of marshland left undeveloped as it was intended to be used for oil drilling that never happened. It is now an important bird preserve, and home to what is possibly the world's rarest butterfly, the Palos Verdes blue.

Madrona Marsh Nature Center

Located within Griffith park, the 133 acre zoo was certified a botanical garden in 2002. They have over 800 species of plants spread throughout the park.

Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens

127 acre garden owned by the county of Los Angeles. Features too numerous to list: oak groves, bamboo forest, succulent and tropical gardens, peacocks. Crescent Farm is a favorite, featuring California native plants and a cob bench. Baldwin lake is a natural sag pond. Adult admission is $15, buy tickets online ahead of time due to covid restrictions. Children under 5 are free.

Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanical Garden

Lori Pearson Memorial Demonstration Garden in Lake Arrowhead

302 acre reserve has the largest remaining representation of coastal dune community in Southern California. El Segundo blue butterfly is endemic and lives it's whole life cycle there. Rare Burrowing Owls have nested there.

LAX Dunes

Uses "California Friendly" plants to demonstrate low water use plants gardens do not have to be made up primarily of succulents. These low water usage plants native to California or any of the four matching Mediterranean climate zones of the world: Southwestern Australia, Central Chile, the Western Cape of South Africa, and the Mediterranean Basin

LADWP Demonstration Garden

LA Green Grounds

Glendora Public Library's Water Wise Garden

Built by Glendale Water & Power at the Glendale Central Library to demonstrate water-tolerant landscaping.

Glendale Demonstration Garden

Willow, Rosa Californica, wetland preserve in Gardena

Gardena Willows Wetland Preserve

Free, $5 donation suggested. Open Wed-Sun, 9am - 2pm.

Fullerton Arboretum

El Toro Water District Demonstration Garden

Crescenta Valley Water District Demonstration Garden

Community Garden at Holy Nativity

Began in August 2019, this demonstration garden is a community project on a parkway bordering the Sheldon Reservoir. It features a large Hügelkultur, native plants, a Mediterranean plant section and a fire-wise planting demonstration.

Community Demonstration Garden at Sheldon Reservoir

Chino Hills State Park covers over 14,000 acres and hosts communities of oak, black walnut, and even the rare Tecate Cypress. The Tecate Cypress is a relicts species from when the climate was much cooler but has survived in spotted areas in California. This population is deeply threatened because of wildfires that are happening too frequently. The Tecate Cypress uses the wildfires to reproduce but grows slowly and when the fires happen too frequently the seedlings are wiped out before they can reproduce.

Chino Hills State Park

A large demonstration garden with walking trail encircling 39 types of trees that were selected for low water use, minimal maintenance, popular beauty, and adaptability to local residential landscapes. 

Chino Basin Water Conservation District Wilderness Park

An 86 acre botanic garden in Claremont next to Pomona college. It features exclusively California native plants. They have the largest collection of California native plants with over 70,000 plants made up of more than 2,000 species, hybrids, and cultivars. Until recently it was named "the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden". Browse casually or go for a hike. They also have a retail nursery that closes during the summer season since it is not a good time to plant natives.

California Botanic Garden

California American Water Los Angeles Demonstration Garden in Rosemead

Cal American Water Demonstration Garden

A native demonstration garden at Balboa Park, in Morley Field, adjacent to tennis courts and a dog park. There isn't a lot of land dedicated to this garden, but it packs in a lot of plants, a couple of bioswales, and a good pathway. Across the street is a roped off nature preserve as well.

Balboa Park Native Plant Demonstration Garden

Arlington Gardens is a 3-acre park situated in a residential community in Pasadena. Formed in 2005 out of a defunct CalTrans project, it mixes native and non-native, water-tolerant plants to demonstrate earth-friendly gardening.

Arlington Garden

Alondra Park Island Native Plant Garden in Lawndale

The Bob Lucas branch library in Altadena relandscaped in 2020 to feature a bioswale, hugelkultur, and native plants. 

Aldadena Library Demonstration Garden, Bob Lucas Branch

Not one, but three demonstration gardens arranged side-by-side at Santa Monica airport, just across the street from the soccer fields at Airport Park. They use a mix of California native plants and other drought-tolerant plants while demonstrating garden functions: Play, Relax, and Entertain. Santa Monica also maintains an informative website with a description of the project, maps and plant lists.

Airport Avenue Demonstration Gardens in Santa Monica

Whether you are visiting Los Angeles from afar or are a resident looking for something do on the weekend, here is info on all public gardens, arboretums, demonstration gardens and natural parkland in Los Angeles.

Gardens and Wild Lands to Visit in Los Angeles

### Demonstration Gardens
Demonstration gardens are generally small gardens intended to demonstrate some use of gardening, such as growing vegetables, drought tolerant or native landscaping
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### Large Gardens
Gardens large enough you could spend a whole day at. They most likely have concessions and a gift shop. They may or may not have charge admission
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### Zoos
Zoos are included in their own category. Most zoos have very relevant botanical landscaping and some are accredited as botanical gardens
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### Natural Parkland
Reserved parkland where native plants can be found in preserved habitat. This includes, but isn't limited to, state and national parkland
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### Japanese Gardens
There are a surprising number of Japanese gardens in LA County. There are actually many different styles of Japanese garden, some of these demonstrate multiple styles
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### Community Gardens
Collective gardening plots, often used to grow food
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 info on all public gardens, arboretums, demonstration gardens and natural parkland in Los Angeles

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