Here’s a primer for newbies who complain that Southern California has no seasons: You know it’s spring when our orange California poppies start to bloom and the garden tours begin. And this year, 16 tours are opening the gates to dozens of private gardens usually closed to the public.
The tours include landscapes devoted to California native plants, historic or traditional ornamental decor and hardscape “yards” designed for outdoor living, softened by perimeters of green and lush containers of trees and plants.
We’re not talking about traditional formulaic “landscapes” of yore — SoCal tract homes swathed in lawns edged with nondescript shrubs and dabs of annual color bought at big-box nurseries. These tours are all about gardens, works of art that mesh unusual flowers, shrubs and trees into elaborate quilts of fragrance, comfort and color.
These are places that invite wandering and discovery. Yes, they also require work, but for the artists who make them happen, that effort is as much therapy and relaxation as it is labor.
“I’ll go out to the garden around 11 a.m. on a Saturday and get so absorbed that, all of a sudden, it’s 4 p.m. and I’ve been outside all day,” said Lori Basheda, whose cottage garden in Long Beach is a popular stop on the annual Mary Lou Heard Memorial Garden Tour May 3-4, which this year includes 49 gardens between Long Beach and San Clemente.
Purple wisteria flowers have already started blooming along the fence in Lori Basheda’s garden, later in the spring, she said, her white wisteria will join the floral chorus.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
“I’ll be walking out the door to go somewhere, and I start seeing stuff that stops me — a weed that needs to be pulled or something that needs clipping. I literally have dirt under my fingernails all the time,” Basheda said. “The first thing I do in the morning is get myself something to drink and then walk in the garden to look at everything and see what’s new. People come by and I’m still in my pajamas.”
Her parents were both avid gardeners — her dad grew vegetables and her mother specialized in flowers. She has fond memories of taking a salt shaker to the family garden so she could clip a few cucumbers and eat them right there in the sun. But Basheda didn’t take up gardening herself until she and her husband, Dan Whitcomb, purchased their home in Long Beach in 2000. The yard was hideous, she said, composed almost entirely of boring hedges. But it was also large, and Basheda said she knew that someday she would want to garden.
Newsletter
Sign up for our L.A. Times Plants newsletter
At the start of each month, get a roundup of upcoming plant-related activities and events in Southern California, along with links to tips and articles you may have missed.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
Their daughter Clara was 2, and they wanted more children, but tragedy is what really ignited her need to garden. Basheda had two late-term miscarriages within two years, and gardening became her refuge. They hired people to tear out the hedges, but after that, Basheda did the work herself, studying garden books, taking classes and slowly filling her yard with the old-fashioned romantic flowers and vines that make a cottage garden.
Lori Basheda and her daughter Clara Whitcomb watch as their bunny Mrs. explores the garden.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
Bit by bit, she filled planting boxes and dug up lawn to transform her yard into what the tour describes as a tangle of sweet-smelling flowers — mounds of sweet peas, dangling wisteria, David Austin roses and scented geraniums along with dahlias, poppies, foxgloves, larkspur, blue bachelor buttons and Queen Anne’s lace. You can get a sneak peek of her garden on her Instagram page @myflowerjam.
“It’s kind of rambly and crazy, and not at all organized,” she said. “I’m weeding all the time, but it’s very therapeutic, just pulling weeds. It gave me something to focus on besides my grief.”
Today, she realizes it’s also a creative outlet. She loves writing — she and her husband are retired reporters — but she also loves color and shaping. “I always wanted to paint, but I was never any good at it, so this is my painting now,” she said. “People tell me they walk by every day, or bring their parents by in wheelchairs just to see what’s in bloom, and it makes me really happy.”
Like most of these tours, the Mary Lou Heard Memorial Garden Tour is collecting funds for a community cause. Mary Lou Heard owned a popular Westminster nursery, Heard’s Country Gardens, that specialized in unusual cottage garden plants. She started the garden tour in 1993. Admission was free, but visitors were asked to make donations to the Sheepfold, a shelter in Tustin for women and their children who are in crisis. Heard closed her nursery shortly before she died from cancer in 2002, but her supporters created the Mary Lou Heard Foundation to continue the tours and fundraising in her honor.
Lori Basheda’s cottage garden is once again joining the Mary Lou Heard Memorial Garden Tour, which this year promises 49 opportunities to visit “real gardens by real people” May 3-4.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
So study our list of tours below and choose a few to help a good cause while sampling a wide variety of inspiring landscapes. If nothing else, they’re a fun way to shake our winter doldrums and marvel at how inventive people can be with flowers, shrubs, grasses and trees.
Just try not to judge if you see someone wandering in their jammies.
March 29
Riverside-San Bernardino chapter of the California Native Plant Society Spring Native Garden Ramble 2025 features four gardens in Redlands and four in the Riverside/Moreno Valley area featuring native plant landscapes, including lawns converted into habitat gardens and a 5-acre ranch restored to native plants. The Redlands gardens are open to visitors from 9 a.m. to noon; the Riverside-Moreno Valley gardens are open from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free but spaces are limited, so you must register in advance to get garden addresses emailed to you. cnps.org
Michael Solberg and Khoi Pham’s home garden is the “Sustainable Storybook Cottage” on the Theodore Payne Foundation’s garden tour.
(Yuri Hasegawa / For The Times)
April 5-6
Theodore Payne Foundation Native Plant Garden Tour “From Coast to Crest” features 34 gardens around Los Angeles devoted to at least 50% native plants. The tours are self-guided, and people who purchase tickets will get guidebooks in the mail (which act as their tickets). The tours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, and include 17 gardens in West Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley on April 5 and 17 on the east side of L.A. on April 6. One ticket gets you into all the gardens on both days and provides an opportunity to see a variety of residential and larger gardens, such as Khoi Pham and Michael Solberg’s Studio City garden of colorful native plants and succulents, Bruce Schwartz’s awe-inspiring oak-shaded estate in Highland Park known as L.A. Native Plant Source and Tonawanda Farm in Eagle Rock, a large yard that meshes California native plants with large beds of fruits and vegetables. Tickets are $55 ($50 for members, free for children under 16). Starting March 26, tickets (with maps) can only be purchased in person at the foundation office in Sun Valley from Tuesday through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (The foundation is closed on Sundays and Mondays.) store.theodorepayne.org
Bruce Schwartz’s lush garden teeming with California native plants will be on the Theodore Payne Foundation’s garden tour.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
April 6
South Bay Poppy Day Garden Tour is a fundraiser for the South Coast chapter of the California Native Plant Society, featuring nine native plant gardens around the South Bay that demonstrate innovative lawn-to-garden conversions; it runs from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 if purchased before the event, $20 on the day of the event. cnps-south-coast.square.site
April 6 and 13
The Prisk Native Plant Garden Open House offers a free visit to the lush native plant garden usually closed to the public, from 1 to 4 p.m. both days at William F. Prisk Elementary School, 2375 Fanwood Ave. in Long Beach. The garden is behind the school, at East Los Arcos Street and Albury Avenue. facebook.com/prisknativegarden
A Swallowtail butterfly rests on Apricot Mallow at Prisk Native Plant Garden, which is hosting a garden tour.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
April 26-27
Riverside Community Flower Show & Garden Tour: “Celebrating Our Citrus Heritage, With Zest!” includes self-guided tours of six Riverside-area gardens. The tours run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, along with a free flower show from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Riverside Elks Lodge, 6166 Brockton Ave., with floral displays, crafts, citrus treats and garden art for sale. A wristband for admission to the garden tours is $10; children under 16 enter free. riversideflowershow.com
The 32nd Floral Park Home & Garden Tour in North Santa Ana features tours of historic homes and gardens from the 1920s to the 1950s from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. The tour also includes a vintage automobile display, food from local restaurants and shopping opportunities. Proceeds support community scholarships and nonprofit organizations. Tickets for the tour are $45 if purchased by April 21, $50 on the day of the event. floralparkhometour.com
April 27
The Morongo Basin Conservation Assn. Desert-Wise Landscape Tour plus special Coyote Hole Experience in Joshua Tree includes the association’s annual self-guided landscape tours, available from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at five private gardens in Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms, plus docent-guided visits to the demonstration gardens at the Joshua Basin Water District and Mojave Desert Land Trust. Tickets for the landscape tour are $20 ($15 for members). There’s also a new add-on tour this year of the Native American Land Conservancy’s private Coyote Hole conservation area, which is usually closed to the public. The Coyote Hole Experience starts in the early morning, before 9 a.m. (time to be announced) and costs $35, with the proceeds split evenly between the Morongo Basin Conservation Assn. (MBCA) and the two groups whose members are leading the tours, the Mojave Desert Chapter of the California Native Plant Society and Native American Land Conservancy. Also that day, filmmakers Miriam Seger and Cole Gibson will give a free presentation at 2:30 p.m. at the Mojave Desert Land Trust office about the two films they created about desert gardening. Tickets and other details available on the MBCA website. mbconservation.org
Lori Basheda holds the Mary Lou Heard Memorial Garden newsletter. Basheda drew inspiration for her own garden after visiting Mary Lou Heard’s 25 years ago.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
May 3-4
The Mary Lou Heard Memorial Garden Tour features self-guided tours of 49 gardens from Long Beach to San Clemente from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. A list of the gardens and their addresses is on the Mary Lou Heard Foundation website, but plan ahead because some are open to visitors on only one of the days. The tour is free, but donation jars will be set out at the gardens to support the Sheepfold, a crisis center for women and children that has long been the beneficiary of the foundation’s annual tours. heardsgardentour.com
May 3
The Leimert Park Garden Tour is a biennial 1.2-mile tour of nine private residential gardens in one of Los Angeles’ most historic neighborhoods, bounded roughly by Crenshaw Boulevard, Exposition Boulevard, Arlington Avenue and Vernon Avenue. The self-guided tours run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance online or $25 if purchased the day of the event at the Garden Tour Hub at the Plant Chica, 4311 Degnan Ave. Children under 13 can join the tours for free when accompanied by a ticketed adult, but pets and strollers are not permitted in the backyards, and not all gardens are wheelchair-accessible. leimertparkgardentour.com
The biennial Leimert Park Garden Tour includes distinctive garden art along with lovely landscapes, such as this Moroccan-style fountain featured in the 2023 tour.
(Lena Hobson)
The Laguna Beach Garden Club 20th Gate & Garden Tour begins at the Laguna Beach County Water District’s Bruce Scherer Waterwise and Fire-Safe Gardens at 306 3rd St. in Laguna Beach, with special buses shuttling ticket holders to tours of several area gardens. Mexican fare and artisanal margaritas will be available for purchase; also look for free homemade baked goods. Artists will be painting canvases in several gardens, and visitors wearing a “festive garden party hat” will be entered in the garden club’s hat contest. Proceeds support school gardens, local scholarships and community projects. Garden tours run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with the last entry scheduled at 2 p.m. Children are not permitted. Timed-entry tickets purchased online are $65.87 before April 30 or $87.21 after for entry anytime between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., along with tickets for one food item and one drink. eventbrite.com
May 4
The 27th Livingston Memorial Visiting Nurse Assn. & Hospice Camarillo Garden Tour features art exhibits and demonstrations, live music, refreshments and a garden-themed boutique in addition to tours of five Camarillo gardens from noon to 4 p.m. Artists from the Pastel Society of the Gold Coast will give demonstrations at each garden. Tickets are $30 online. Proceeds benefit the association’s hospice program in Camarillo. lmvna.org
May 10
West Floral Park and Jack Fisher Park Neighborhoods Open Garden Day includes tours in two tree-lined neighborhoods of vintage homes in North Santa Ana, along with live music, art displays, garden talks and demonstrations, a classic car display, free bottled water at the gardens, coffee and doughnuts available for purchase in the morning and vendors selling food and garden products from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Tours are 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with a shuttle service between the two loops of tours to minimize wait times.) Ticket sales begin March 21 online for $20, or $25 if purchased the day of the event, at West Santa Clara and North Westwood avenues in Santa Ana. opengardenday.com
An inviting stop in Santa Ana’s historic West Floral Park and Jack Fisher Park neighborhoods Open Garden Day tours.
(Open Garden Day)
May 15
The 28th Newport Harbor Home & Garden Tour features tours at six locally designed homes and gardens near Newport Harbor High School between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., along with a morning reception at 9 a.m., luncheon from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and an online specialty boutique of home decor and accessories from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The event is a fundraiser for the Newport Harbor Educational Foundation to support academic programs and faculty at Newport Harbor High School. Tickets can be purchased online for $120 by April 25. newportharborhometour.com
May 17
San Clemente Garden Club 2025 Garden Tour features self-guided tours and live entertainment at multiple San Clemente-area gardens from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online before the event for $35, or $30 each if purchasing four or more. (Tickets purchased the day of the event are $45.) Proceeds support the San Clemente Garden Club College Scholarship and Junior Gardeners programs as well as conservation organizations and civic beautification projects in San Clemente. sanclementegardenclub.com
A flowery meadow from the 2024 San Clemente Garden Club tour.
(Kim Neal)
Virginia Robinson Gardens “Floral Fantasia” Garden Tour includes private gardens rarely open to the public, along with tours of the house decked out in elaborate floral arrangements, live music, a catered luncheon on the great lawn, a silent auction and an on-site marketplace, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Beverly Hills. Purchase tickets online for $350, as well as valet parking for $50 (which must be purchased in advance). robinsongardens.org
The kitchen is filled with floral arrangements at the Virginia Robinson Floral Fantasia Garden Tour.
(JC Griffith)
May 18
The Rossmoor Woman’s Club 21st Outdoor Living and Garden Tour features self-guided tours of at least four “California outdoor living spaces” in the Rossmoor-Los Alamitos area of Orange County, just north of Seal Beach, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event includes an outdoor marketplace with music, food, plants and related items for purchase. Tickets can be purchased online in April, or on the day of the event at Arbor Village, 10651 Los Alamitos Blvd. in Los Alamitos. Net proceeds from the tours support local charities and college scholarships for Los Alamitos High School students. rossmoorwomansclub.org
The Rossmoor Woman’s Club garden tour includes hardscapes softened by winding paths and beautiful plants in pots and perimeter beds.
(William Nottingham)
