Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Designed by: Ervanna Bowen Bissell,
Elizabeth de Forest, Lockwood de Forest, Jr., and Beatrix
Farrand One of the first botanic gardens in America to be
planted solely with native plants, the Santa Barbara Botanic
Garden’s design and plant palette represent a unique
collaboration between landscape architects Lockwood de Forest,
Jr. and Beatrix Farrand. In addition to the site specific work
at the garden, Lockwood and his wife Elizabeth de Forest
popularized the ideas and experiments taking place at the garden
in their publication, The Santa Barbara Gardener. Proposed
alterations to the historic core of the garden now threaten to
irreversibly destroy this design legacy. Founded in 1926, the
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden was the first botanic garden in
California devoted to regional, native plants. The property
includes the Santa Barbara Mission Dam and Aqueduct, constructed
by Native American Chumash Indians during the Colonial period
(the property was purchased, in part, to protect