Today I noted that progress is being made in creating Balboa Park’s Central Gardens. Work continues to be done around the Botanical Building and along one side of the Lily Pond!
The new pergola west of the Botanical Building is taking shape, the grassy area around the fountain to the east is all dug up (as you can see in the above photograph), and new grass and garden plants can be enjoyed by park visitors in various other places!
A fascinating exhibit at Balboa Park’s Japanese Friendship Garden will soon be ending. It concerns the history of Japanese American gardeners in San Diego. You can view the exhibit through Thursday, January 22, 2026.
Composed primarily of historical photographs from the early 20th century through World War II and beyond, the exhibit shows how first generation Japanese immigrants, with limited opportunities, brought beauty to San Diego through gardening.
It includes a look at Japanese Americans held as prisoners in Poston, Arizona during the war and their efforts to bring beauty into an ugly situation.
Photographs take the viewer into the present with amazing gardens in Balboa Park and Japanese inspired landscapes in San Diego.
The exhibit is made possible by the Japanese American Historical Society of San Diego.
Every year, in Balboa Park, around the middle of January, the public can learn to prune back roses. Today the San Diego Rose Society, Balboa Park Garden Stewards, Rose Garden Corps, and the UCCE Master Gardener Program of San Diego County were educating would-be green thumbs at the award-winning Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden.
I blogged about this free educational event three years ago. I noticed that this year a number of friendly folks were also on hand to sharpen garden tools! Very handy!
Why not click the above links and consider becoming a member of one or more local gardening groups. If you’d like, you can even volunteer to help maintain Balboa Park’s very beautiful rose garden!
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If you’re ever in National City and in the neighborhood of Paradise Creek Educational Park, you might pay a visit. I enjoyed a ramble through the park a couple weeks ago and found the beauty of nature and surprising public art!
I began at the north end of the park at West 18th Street and Hoover Avenue. That’s where I spied two gorgeous mosaic benches depicting birds and other wildlife. Near the path rose a silvery wing-like sculpture.
I then proceeded over a long curving bridge above the wetland. Arriving at the amphitheater with its shade structure (in the shape of the moon), I discovered colorful art tiles. Students from Kimball Elementary School, which is directly adjacent to the park, have outdoor classes here.
From the amphitheater I walked past the community garden and playground and on, until I reached the south end of the half mile, 6-acre linear park at West 22nd Street, just east of Wilson Avenue. I turned around, headed back, and discovered a flower-like windmill sculpture between the playground and community garden!
Paradise Creek Educational Park was an Urban Greening Project of National City. It was designed by Schmidt Design Group. The park has won multiple awards, including an Orchid from the San Diego Architectural Foundation.
You might enjoy a similar walk on a sunny day. You’ll spot some birds, too!
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Five years ago I explored the San Diego River Garden in Mission Valley. Read about my visit here.
The community park, full of native vegetation and art, was developed by the San Diego River Park Foundation. It’s no longer listed on the foundation’s website. For all intents and purposes, it appears to have been abandoned.
I noticed, about a week ago, that people can still enter the old River Garden and walk about on its trails. So that’s what I did.
As you can see, the human-made parts of the park are fading away. Signs, planters and art are weathered and are slowly disintegrating.
While works of the human hand gradually pass away, the forces of nature persist. Plants, trees and natural life grow, renew, overtake.
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A week ago, members of the Lemon Grove volunteer group Revitalize Broadway planted an extensive pollinator garden next to the Lemon Grove Depot trolley station, in what is called Promenade Park. I first read about the project here. I saw the garden today!
Keep in mind the new plants are very small now, but they’ll grow and eventually fill out the garden spaces.
Several informative plaques among the new plantings explain the benefits of native plants, and how they attract a variety of local wildlife, including beneficial insects like butterflies and bees.
If you’d like to learn more about the Revitalize Broadway group and their positive community efforts, click here. Do you live in Lemon Grove? Why not join these good people?
What did I see today?
One plaque describes the life cycle of the monarch butterfly.
Another plaque explains the migration of monarch butterflies and how certain plants provide food sources for declining butterfly populations. Pictured are Yarrow, California Lilac, Pozo Blue Sage, Pacific Aster and Narrow Leaved Milkweed.
Another part of the new garden is slightly depressed and resembles a dry creek. It’s called a rain garden.
Designed to be environmentally friendly, it will help valuable rain water permeate the ground and act as a natural filter.
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This holiday season, if you have a chance, head into Balboa Park’s Botanical Building. You’ll discover 675 poinsettias! That’s what I was told by a representative of Forever Balboa Park!
There are poinsettia displays at the center of the Botanical Building, beside the fountains at either end, along windows, and here and there planted in the surrounding lush greenery.
All that holiday color is a sight to behold!
Enjoy these photographs which were taken during the first day of December Nights…
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If you’d like to see San Diego through my lens, find the “Follow” box in the sidebar to receive new posts in your email, or bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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In Balboa Park today the rain stopped shortly after noon. I happened to get off the bus right then, and I started my afternoon walk through the Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden.
Beads of water gleamed on leaves, and on the flowers that were still in bloom as winter approaches. Many petals had already fallen to the soil.
Some of the roses, having grown taller than my head, mingled with the storm clouds that were passing to the east.
Here are a handful of photos…
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
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How exciting! I see that potted plants have arrived in Balboa Park, to be planted in the new garden areas by the Lily Pond and around the Botanical Building!
The nine new garden areas together are called the Central Gardens. It’s a major addition to the park we all love!
Creating the Central Gardens with their new walkways and new pergola is Phase Two of the Botanical Building and Gardens revitalization.
You can follow the progress of the project and learn more about it by checking out this special Forever Balboa Park website.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Feel free to share!
The San Diego Bonsai Club hosted their fall show this weekend in Balboa Park. Amazing works of living, growing art filled long tables in Casa del Prado’s Room 101.
Members of the club presented their bonsai for public viewing, and everyone was invited to learn about the unique art form from experts and make purchases of plants.
When I visit these shows, the beauty and wisdom makes an enduring impression.
What did I learn? Working with bonsai takes patience. Make a mistake–clip where you shouldn’t have–and your error isn’t fatal. Simply put your bonsai aside for a time and let it grow.
Then revisit it. You’ll find a newly grown living thing, ready again to be sculpted into a wild-seeming, aesthetically pleasing object of beauty.
That would seem to be good advice for other types of artistic creation.
Seriously frustrated with a painting or written manuscript? Put it aside, let it live for a time in your subconscious.
New perspectives and ideas will grow in your mind. Then train and prune your creation again.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Feel free to share!
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