Our Gardens
For nearly 60 years, our 7.5 acre property has been home to a nursery and botanical sanctuary. Our roots are so deep that our street was named Azalea Lane after the original nursery, Azalea Farm. When Polo de Lorenzo and Warren Smith purchased the property in 1976, it consisted of the gardens by the house and the nursery area, the rest of the property was overgrown with blackberry and weeds. Over the Sonoma Horticultural Nursery years, the weeds were cleared away and the acreage was planted to become the forest garden that exists today. Now our gardens offer nearly two miles of forest trails overflowing with lush ferns, rhododendron blossoms, and towering dawn redwoods. With diverse plantings in multiple habitats, visitors can walk around a spring-fed pond, cross a bridge over a year-round creek, and traverse a boardwalk through a pre-historic wetland filled with cypress knees.
Collection
The forest includes native redwoods and oaks, the largest grove of Dawn Redwoods west of the Mississippi, and Sonoma County’s Heritage Tree #20 – the Sonoma Dove Tree. A superb collection of rhododendrons, magnolias, and camellias–many of which were developed here–grace the forest.
Habitat
Blucher Creek traverses the property, making it a riparian, biotic habitat that provides home to much wildlife: mammals such as bear, mountain lion, bobcat, river otter, mink, and foxes; birds such as nesting great horned owls and red shouldered hawks, and insect such as the exclamation damselfly and dragonflies. Many fungi and lichen are also found throughout.
Guided botanic reserve tours
Every first and third Saturday of the month, we offer a 90-minute docent tour. A horticulturist will teach you about the history of the gardens, show you seasonal highlights of the forest and spotlight unique and rarely seen plants.
Historical Photos
