Blake Garden is a botanical garden

Botanical garden

A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...

 located at 70 Rincon Road in Kensington, California

Kensington, California

Kensington is an unincorporated community and census-designated place located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area, in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 5,077 at the 2010 census.- Law and government :Kensington is an unincorporated area of Contra...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is a teaching facility for the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning of the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. It is also the site of Blake House, the official residence of the President of the University of California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

. The garden is open to the public during weekdays; no admission fee is charged.

Garden development began in the early 1920s when Anson Stiles Blake and his wife Anita Day Symmes of Berkeley sought a new site for their home to make way for the university's proposed football stadium

California Memorial Stadium

California Memorial Stadium is an outdoor football stadium on the campus of the University of California in Berkeley. Commonly known as Memorial Stadium, it is the home field for the University of California Golden Bears of the Pacific-12 Conference...

. In 1957 the Blakes deeded their house and garden to the University, and title passed to the University upon Anson Blake's death in 1962. Five years later, Blake House became the UC President's official residence.

The garden includes over 1200 species of established plants laid out within a formal, Italian-style garden with long reflecting pool, water garden, a grotto

Grotto

A grotto is any type of natural or artificial cave that is associated with modern, historic or prehistoric use by humans. When it is not an artificial garden feature, a grotto is often a small cave near water and often flooded or liable to flood at high tide...

, a two-sided staircase, as well as an arboretum

Arboretum

An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...

 and views of a Mediterranean garden.

External links

• Official site

37.91346°N 122.28521°W