After more than 100 years, Berkeley's Botanical Garden still ranks among the better-kept secrets in the East Bay. The 34-acre site on Centennial Drive, midway between the Strawberry Canyon Recreation Area and the Lawrence Hall of Science, may seem remote. .
Many visitors make the trip on foot or by bike.
You have a real sense of getting away, even though the city is just down the hill. The garden was first established in 1890 where Moffitt Undergraduate Library now stands. Vestiges of the original plantings are still there. Threatened by the proliferation of campus buildings in the 1920s, the garden was moved to Strawberry Canyon to the site of a former dairy farm. It now houses more than 13,000 varieties of plants, which are arranged geographically by region of origin.