Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

So I mentioned a couple posts ago that we went Santa Barbara.... And I mentioned that the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is responsible for me ending up at the beautiful Alice Keck Memorial Garden. What I didn't share with you is my pics of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden itself. Voila!

While my husband was off golfing with his family, I took my daughter here to check out the damage at SBBG from the Jesusita fire of 2009 that burned over 8700 acres in the Santa Barbara area.

But I won't show pics of the areas affected by the fire... It's time to move on. After all, the plants have.

This place is beautiful. Again I will tell you my pictures don't do it justice....

The meadows remained unharmed from the fire.

And their dudleya garden was intact too. Say hi to Dudleya caespitosa, aka Sand lettuce :)

And Clarkia was to die for there. I bought seeds from their gift shop for C.unguiculata and C.bottae. I'm hoping I can just toss them in the garden and see what happens. I'm too lazy to start seeds the proper way these days.

What I love about my daughter: after visiting Lotusland the day before with a bunch of my husband's family(which is fabulous, elegant, well-designed), she was happy and content coming here with just me the following day. Better yet, she said "Next time we come here, can we bring the rest of the family?"

The fun part was seeing their rebirth. New plant growth is bright green and stands out against the rest. It reminded me of a trip I took to Hawaii with my husband and some friends (pre-kids, of course). We hiked to see the volcano (my husband had a need to see flowing lava). In the middle of a sea of blackened, hardened lava we would find these lime green ferns occasionally that were trying their darnedest to grow out of these small cracks in the earth. It was amazing how Mother Nature regenerates herself.

This was a great lesson for my daughter. As we walked along we talked about why people could harm such a place, and the plants and animals that were affected by a single careless person. She's four years old... I hear the "why" question a lot. But today the only answer I could come up with was "because sometimes people don't think."

As much as I had been wanting to see Lotusland for years, I LOVED the fact that my daughter seemed to enjoy the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden more. She preferred our native flowers and glorious meadows over rare plants and 500 year old statues.

Again, my daughter had to teach me that the things that are most beautiful in life are the things that aren't designed by us, but by the greatest landscape designer of all time. She also reminded me that I don't have to have all the answers. I couldn't explain why this rock was in this tree. And I couldn't explain why people could carelessly cause a fire; whether it be by a lawn mower, a cigarette, or an unattended camp fire. But she would say, "that's okay mommy, it will grow back."

I am thankful for the many people in this world that dedicate their free time to preserving places like this. From the guy at the front desk that handed us our map, to the lovely lady in the nursery that helped us pick out a plant, and the super sweet lady in the gift shop that helped me pick out a book on California wildflowers....thank you. We had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back :)