Seasonal Highlights

The Arboretum offers a quiet refuge and a refreshing setting for recreation at any time of the year. It also provides an opportunity to experience the turning seasons through changing displays of flowers, fruits, seeds, bark and foliage. Populations of birds, mammals, insects, and other fauna vary rhythmically through the year. Look for these especially showy or prominent features.

Early spring

• Forsythia
• Redbud
• Acacia
• California wild lilac
• Flowering plum, apricot, crabapple
• California poppy

Late spring

• Wildflowers (poppies, clarkias, godetias)
• Golden lupine
• Flannel bush
• Coralbells
• Salvias
• Roses
• Freetail bats breeding

Summer

• Texas ranger
• Cockspur coral tree
• Naked ladies
• Rain lily
• Pipevine swallowtail, Anise swallowtail, and monarch butterflies
• Swainson's hawk
• Jumping oak gall

Autumn

• Butterfly bush
• Autumn sage
• Mexican sage
• California fuchsia
• California wild grape

Winter

• California currants and gooseberries
• Manzanita
• Daphne
• Red and yellow-berried toyon
• Wood duck and merganser overwintering