The California Garden Tour: The 50 Best Gardens to Visit in the Golden State

I'll be taking this beautiful guide with me every time I go to California. Olson's knowledge and appreciation of gardens, and his clear focus on what makes each of his selections distinctive, comes through on every page. His fine writing makes this book a pleasure to read, the photos are enticing, and the clean format and straightforward presentation makes this an easy resource to use. I look forward to exploring all 50 gardens.

I have lived in California for over 40 years and never knew about most of the gardens in this beautifully illustrated book. I love gardens, so I've been using it as a guidebook as I travel around the state. It's easy to use and easily fits into your bag or backpack. The garden stories are fascinating and the photographs make you want to see the gardens for yourself, I am going to be giving The California Garden Tour to a lot of my friends at Christmas.

It's both amazing and compelling to see in Donald Olson's new book the huge diversity of the gardens and plant materials in the Golden State. The book is beautiful; the amazing photos tantalize me to experience more. Each of the gardens has its own unique story that the author captures in a wonderfully personable and knowledgeable voice. I particularly liked his telling of how gardens in California came to be, essentially a story of bringing water to an arid region to create a whole new world of exotic wonder. I will use this book often. I'm inspired to visit all these fantastic gardens. The book is a must have for all garden lovers.

For those who love beauty, travel and gardens, it doesn't get any better than Donald's garden tour books. As the author is himself a gardener with an eye to harmony and curiosity; an author with an impressive catalogue of books, including the Pacific Northwest garden tours; a playwright with a sense of the performer; and a man with a great sense of humor, these garden books are far beyond the dry routes of other travel writing, readable on their own, and usefully directive for traveling. You want this for your library, and for gifts!

Imagine an invitation to a dinner party given by a favorite friend or relative, an invitation you accept with relish because you know the host not only has a passion for all things beautiful, but also really knows how to tell a great story. The California Garden Tour by Donald Olson is that invitation. Some of the 50 gardens described in words and striking photos are well known; some are obscure. But Olson makes each of them come alive. A garden is a collaboration between nature and men and women, and Olson has a particular skill with the human side of the equation. Here are the beautiful Descanso Gardens, (Los Angeles), originally home to "a character named E. Manchester Boddy," encyclopedia salesman turned millionaire newspaper man, who started the largest camellia collection in the United States. We visit the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens with Olson as our host. Burbank, a New Englander and high school dropout, developed a potato in 1872 that financed his move to the West Coast, and his lifelong pursuit of creating hybrids, both fruit and floral -- over 800 of them, many of which grace our gardens, or dinner plates, today. Olson takes us to the Greystone Mansion and Gardens, created by Edward Doheny of the Teapot Dome scandal, and hints at suspicious goings-on in the mansion's history. A favorite garden of mine would have to be Lotusland, (Santa Barbara), created by a Polish ex-pat (and faux diva), Ganna Walska. Before entering the gorgeous grounds, the author takes us on a dizzying tour of Madame Walska's marital life. "Ganna, you see, was searching for spiritual enlightenment. After six husbands, what else was there? Gardening, as it turned out." For those passionate about gardens, and for those who simply love a good story, this book is ideal. The California Garden Tour may well turn out to be a classic of its kind.

Ok - I admit I was an idiot. I bought this book thinking it would be a photographic tour of each garden mentioned, only to find it's a tour guide book with two or less photos for each garden. It's got the address, opening times, and main features of each garden but that's basically it. If you are looking to travel to CA and do a garden tour this book might be useful. If you are looking for garden inspiration, landscaping ideas, planting plans - then this is NOT the book for you - or me.

A fine book. Great for the garden lover headed to the West Coast. I look forward to visiting many of the gardens described when I'm able to return to the West Coast one day soon. This series of books has been very helpful in planning my travels.

It is a well written guide to public gardens of California. Each chapter is just long enough to provide information but so long that you get lost. There is a great deal of information on the history and people behind each garden. Some (like me) will enjoy this added information while others may find it to be a bit much and prefer to focus on the actual garden tour. If you are interested in botanical gardens, even just a little, you should enjoy this book. I only give it three stars for two reasons. The first is that I am a serious photographer and the photo quality is only mediocre. Most of the photos were taken by the author and though he has a pretty good eye for composition, most are not professional quality. The second reason is that there are some places that should not be included and really stretch the definition of public garden. For example there is an outdoor area for workers to take their break between two office towers - why is that here? But the biggest blunder is the section on Palm Springs. It includes a chapter on Joshua Tree National Park, which is of course a national park and not a botanical garden. It is so out of place it is baffling. Even worse, the number one public garden in the Palm Springs area - The Living Desert - is not listed at all! The book is useful and well written, but the selection of listings needs some work.