Santa Barbara -- Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden was founded in 1926 as a joint effort of the Carnegie Institution and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and began with 13 acres in Mission Canyon purchased by local philanthropist Anna Dorinda Blaksley Bliss for the museum. Originally known as the Blaksley Botanic Garden, in 1939 the Botanic Garden incorporated as a separate institution and assumed its current name. The garden was originally laid out in plant communities according to habitat, along with experimental groupings. Today its collections focus on the California Floristic Province and include plants native to the state of California as well as northwestern Baja California and southwestern Oregon. Currently encompassing 78 acres, a significant portion of the garden achieved Santa Barbara County Historic Landmark status in 2003.