California State University Northridge Botanic Garden

The California State University Northridge Botanic Garden or CSUN Botanic Garden is located in the northern San Fernando Valley, in the southeast section ("quadrant") of the California State University, Northridge campus in the community of Northridge in Los Angeles, California.

The California Flannelbush in bloom; ( Fremontodendron californicum )

The 1.5-acre (0.61 ha) site includes a 1-acre (0.40 ha) botanical garden and approximately .5-acre (0.20 ha) of nursery, shadehouse, and greenhouse zones. The botanic gardens were established shortly after the campus was established in 1959, as a Valley branch of California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). It has grown through the administrations of succeeding San Fernando Valley State College and the present day CSUN Biology Department.[1]

Collections

The Botanic Garden was originally planted exclusively with Californian native plants in 1959. Since then the garden has evolved and expanded into a diverse collection representing many different geographic regions and themes, with over 1,200 species and cultivars present.

The different sections of the garden contain: trees, palms, shrubs, 'subshrubs,' perennials, bulbs, cacti, succulents, herbs, annual plants and wildflowers, ground covers, butterfly and beneficial insect sustainers, edibles, and other plant types from; California and the other four Mediterranean climate plant regions of the world, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, the Americas, and other continents and regions. An ethnobotanical and a contemporary water-conserving landscape are being developed.

Public activities
  1. The Botanic Garden is open to the public Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. It is closed weekends and university holidays, and occasionally during extreme weather.[2] The entrance is reached via parking structures off Nordhoff or Zelzah (depending on campus construction).[3]
  2. The CSUN Botanic Garden has short courses on a wide variety of garden topics by horticultural experts for the public.[4] It also sponsors 'CSUN-al Gardening', a series of four free gardening-themed classes a year.[5] The gardens also gives K-12 school tours.[6]

See also

References
  1. http://www.csun.edu/botanicgarden/about.html all access dates: 5/30/2010
  2. http://www.csun.edu/botanicgarden/Hours.html
  3. http://www.csun.edu/maps/cm1.html
  4. http://www.csun.edu/botanicgarden/index.html
  5. http://www.csun.edu/botanicgarden/algardening2009.html
  6. http://www.csun.edu/botanicgarden/tours.html


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.