Ruth Bancroft Garden

Ruth Bancroft Garden
A collection of succulents
Ruth Bancroft Garden Show map of San Francisco Bay Area Ruth Bancroft Garden Show map of California Ruth Bancroft Garden Show map of the United States
Type	Botanical garden
Location	1552 Bancroft Road, Walnut Creek, California
Coordinates	37°55′25.61″N 122°2′14.16″W
Area	2.5 acres (1.0 ha)
Opened	1950 (1950)
Website	https://www.ruthbancroftgarden.org/

The Ruth Bancroft Garden is a 3.5-acre (1.4 ha) public dry garden established by Ruth Bancroft. It contains more than 2,000 cactus, succulents, trees, and shrubs native to California, Mexico, Chile, South Africa, and Australia. It is located at 1552 Bancroft Road in Walnut Creek, California, USA.

History

The Garden began in the early 1950s as Ruth Bancroft's private collection of potted plants within Bancroft Farm, a 400-acre (160 ha) property bought by publisher Hubert Howe Bancroft (grandfather of Ruth's husband Philip) in the 1880s as an orchard for pears and walnuts.^[1][2] In the 1950s, Bancroft brought home a single succulent, an Aeonium grown by plant breeder Glenn Davidson.^[3] By 1972, the collection was moved to its current site, when the orchard was cut down and the land was rezoned.^[3]

In 1989, it became the first garden in the United States to be preserved by The Garden Conservancy, and has been open to the public since 1992.^[3] Today the Garden is an outstanding landscape of xerophytes (dry-growing plants). It is open to the public for an admission fee of $8–10.

Collection

Trees, succulents, and other plants at the Garden.

Garden collections include the following plants:

• Aeoniums
• Aloes
• Agavoideae
• Brachychiton trees including Brachychiton rupestris
• Brahea palms including Brahea armata
• Bromeliaceae-Bromeliads including Dyckias, Hechtias, and Puyas (including Puya chilensis)
• Butia palms
• Dasylirions including Dasylirion longissimum and Dasylirion wheeleri
• Dudleyas
• Echeverias
• Echinocacti
• Furcraeas including Furcraea cabuya
• Hesperaloes including Hesperaloe parviflora
• Hesperoyuccas including Hesperoyucca whipplei
• Jubaea chilenensis palms
• Nolinas; Xanthorrhoeas including Xanthorrhoea preissii
• Yuccas including Yucca filamentosa, Yucca gloriosa, and Yucca rostrata

References and external links

1. Relocation Walnut Creek (retrieved 29 October 2010)
2. Bancroft, Ruth (1991–1992). "The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, California: Creation in 1971, and Conservation" (PDF) (Interview). Interviewed by Suzanne B. Riess. Berkeley, California: Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved June 18, 2017.
3. Silver, Johanna (2016). The Bold Dry Garden: Lessons from the Ruth Bancroft Garden. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. ISBN 9781604696707.

See also

• List of botanical gardens and arboretums in California
• List of botanical gardens in the United States

External links

• Official website
• The Garden Conservancy