I haven’t been able to get out much of late to photograph but my family and I did manage a few hours recently visiting The Huntington Library which is a botanical garden in Pasadena near LA, here in California.

The gardens are split into different types focusing on a range of regions, desert, jungle and Lilly pond for example. On this visit we spent the majority of our time in the newly updated Chinese garden.

It’s beautifully laid out around a central pond (lake) with an easy route around on well laid paths; easy for us and our stroller (pushchair). There are a number of buildings that provide a backdrop to the plantings and landscapes and also enable a number of tableaus incorporating rocks, sculptures and bonsai trees. The Gardens seem to have quite a few mature and well structured Bonsais in both the Chinese and Japanese areas for the gardens.

We very much enjoyed slow ambling about and our daughter was able to safely run around too exploring and pointing new things out to us. There were fish and ducks and other things for her to look at and she found it very stimulating.

With the COVID situation the gardens have had to limit numbers and they have a limited number of tickets available on a given day which are spread out through the hours of the day. We recently became members of these gardens which gives us unlimited access for the most part but we still have to secure tickets ahead of time to get an available slot for our visit which is fine and doesn’t impact us very much really.

The Chinese garden still has some areas under construction and even though it still provides a peaceful space to get a break. Once things fully open up this will, I am sure be a very popular spt. We intend to make this our go to place for regular outings over the next few months; it is a simple and enjoyable day out for a few hours; very calming and pleasant to just wander with no pressure or expectations and have a break from our complicated lives. If you are in this area and you have never visited that gardens I highly recommend you visit just make sure you leave enough tickets for my family and I 🙂