A Mid-Winter Stroll through Tilden Park’s Botanic Garden

Leaders:  Anna Gil and Kurt Rademacher

Tilden Park hills

Please sign up for this field trip on Meetup beginning January 1.

While many of the world’s plants basically “close shop” during winter, for those which evolved to thrive in California’s “Mediterranean” climate with its mild winters and long, hot, rainless summers, the early winter rains signal a spring-like resurrection!  Long patient seeds germinate, ferns unfurl, and the mossy tree trunks and iconic yellow hillsides soon erupt into emerald green.

Join us for an intriguing walk through the Regional Parks Botanic Garden tucked into a valley in the Berkeley Hills. This “living museum” of California’s varied plant communities, from deserts and alpine meadows to chaparral and coastal rainforests.  We will explore how various plants adapt to their unique habitats and seasons: their structures and ‘tricks’ to both thrive and survive the exuberant and the dormant times.

Garrya elliptica      Coast Silk Tassel

For now, leafless plants like the various willows, maples and dogwoods, winter uncloaks a surprising pallet of variously colored seeds, twigs, and buds in reds, purples, yellows and greens.  The garden’s scores of Manzanita species are in full (if dainty) bloom, as are some other early bloomers like the anxious milk maids and the secretive fetid adder’s tongue.  Don’t expect to see anything abloom in the Sierran Meadows section, though we will learn what their alpine colleagues are doing beneath their current snowpack.

Come prepared for a cold-weather walk on potentially wet trails and stony stairways for this peek into the winter world of our native plants. This walk will be about one mile long.

 Directions: East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park, via Shasta Road approach, Berkeley. Intersection of Wildcat Canyon Road and South Park Road.

Google Maps link:  Wildcat Canyon Rd – Google Maps

Carpool Options from Marin County: Meet at 9 am in order to leave by 9:15 and reach  the Garden by 10:00.  Meet near the corner of Larkspur Landing Circle and SF Drake Blvd. (east end of the shopping center near Design Within Reach).  Riders will park on SF Drake Blvd. headed west, not in the shopping center lot.  Google maps location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/V4PAJ2viUwbdGVaZ6

Bring: Water, a snack/lunch. Dress in layers.  A hiking pole and sturdy shoes are advised, as surfaces can be uneven.

Rain cancels. Check Meetup.

Email Ann with any questions.    Text for day-of-trip questions or issues: 530-521-4402

Please:

• New Year, new waiver. Please sign the CNPS Marin 2026 Waiver
• Practice clean trail etiquette. Pocket Guide – Every Step Counts and Cleanliness Tips for Hikers
• No dogs on this trip.