San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden — Attraction in San Luis Obispo

The actual botanical garden portion of the property had a nice plant selection to view, with many succulents in bloom in early winter. My main complaint is the map/brochure (see attached). It devotes a large amount of space to an area on the hillside behind the main garden that is labeled as the Future Garden. The key word here is "future" given that there is basically nothing there. Directional signage is bad along the trails making it difficult to figure out which of the two trails on the brochure you're on (given that they intersect multiple times, at least on the map). According to the back of the brochure, the Panorama trail is "being built," but it is unclear what this means for accessibility to that trail. The Discovery trail and hike along it are probably nice in the dry season, but should be avoided for some time (at least a week) after any rain, as they are not paved/graveled and...

Premature to call this a botanical garden. Their "display garden" is the section that I would typically think of as a botanical garden (showing different plants with their common and scientific names), but is very small, probably not much more plants or info than you could find at any local nursery. The children's playground is very cute. But the bulk of the space is better described as an undeveloped nature preserve; there is a trail you can hike to get views of the surrounding hills, but it was poorly maintained and overgrown with prickly brush. The staff were very friendly and enthusiastic, and once the development is complete I imagine this will be a very nice botanical garden, but at the moment the name and entrance fee seem...

Really nice place featuring the Mediterranean climate, which of course includes California. Trails were in good shape, not too difficult. The map that they give you isn't to scale, so that was a bit confusing, but you couldn't really get lost. We had a pleasant surprise: we asked one of the guys working on a Kubota tractor about the rocks on the hill (they make an eagle, representing the military camp), and he gave us a ton of information about the whole area and it's history, including that part of it (across the creek) was used in WW2 for training, and the military was only now sweeping it for any left over ordinance. But they wondered, "would he mow it before they did?" He told...