Grand Renovation for Balboa Park
Contributor
- Topics: Inspired Gardens and Design
Header Image Credit: Forever Balboa Park
Summer 2025
A sweeping transformation is underway in San Diego’s beloved Balboa Park. Following the City of San Diego’s $26 million restoration of the landmark 1915 Botanical Building—completed in December 2024—the surrounding gardens are now poised for their own revitalization. The nonprofit Forever Balboa Park is leading the $10 million revitalization of The Central Gardens, which frame the Botanical Building, according to a May 2025 press release. The newly designed spaces are expected to open to the public by January 2026.
The project encompasses the reconstruction of the west lawn’s historic pergola, a grand affair with five bays of Doric columns lost sometime during the government’s residence during World War II. It also calls for the addition of historic benches, and the installation of nine new “Global Mediterranean” themed gardens (Van Grove 2025).
Visitors will first see the Entry Garden along the Lily Pond, awash in a vibrant palette of lime green and pink featuring redmaids (Calindrinia sp.), breath of heaven (Coleonema pulchellum), and mirror plant (Coprosma sp.), accented by colorful mangaves (Agave x Mangave) and Blue Flame agave (Agave ‘Blue Flame’) (Spurlock, Forever Balboa Park, and City of San Diego 2024).
On the west side, visitors explore the wonders of scent in the Fragrant Garden, a romantic collection of fragrant vines like jasmine (Jasminum sp.) wrapping the restored arbor, grounded with aromatic rosemary (recently moved to Salvia rosmarinus) and lavender (Lavandula sp.).
Further on, the Sensory Garden offers a full-body immersive experience of fragrance, sound, and touch crafted with plants in blue-green, sulfur yellow, and orange such as Davis Gold Toyon (Heteromeles ‘Davis Gold’), Douglas Iris (Iris douglasiana), Breeze dwarf mat rush (Lomandra ‘Breeze’), Soft Caress barberry (Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’), and Eve Case coffeeberry (Rhamnus ‘Eve Case’).
To the east, the texture-rich Morning Garden captures the beauty of sunrise, featuring feathery backlit blooms and foliage from plants including White Butterflies (Oenothera lindheimeri ‘White Butterflies’ (formerly in the genus Gaura), Powis Castle wormwood (Artemisia arborescens x absinthium ‘Powis Castle’), Blond Ambition blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis ‘Blonde Ambition’), and Santa Barbara daisy (Erigeron karvanskianus).
“There’s this interplay between the sensorial garden and the gardens that will surround the newly reconstructed pergola, and that area is what we’re referring to as the aromatic gardens,” Jacqueline Higgins, Forever Balboa Park’s vice president of planning, told the San Diego Union-Tribune (Van Grove 2025). “So because that space will be a space where people can sit and contemplate the building and the redesign, that’s where we’re really introducing all the lavenders and jasmine and more sages and stuff like that.”
Spurlock Landscape Architects designed the project to showcase seasonal plantings and support dynamic programming such as curated exhibits by local plant societies, designers, and artists tied to the Botanical Building. Improved infrastructure—like lighting, Wi-Fi, and accessible gathering spaces—will allow guests to enjoy the gardens more comfortably and for longer periods.
Read More About the Balboa Park Botanical Building Restoration
What it Takes to Revitalize a Legend, By: Caron Golden
Sometimes, if you’re lucky and prepared, serendipity comes calling in a career. For San Diego horticulturist and landscape designer Nan Sterman, serendipity arrived in 2022 when she was asked to create a plant list for the first phase of the soon-to-be transformed Botanical Building in Balboa Park. Unlike projects for her residential clients, where a plant list is a part of a full design and installation, this plant list was the sum of the assignment. Until it wasn’t.
The project improves accessibility to the historic site with a re-sloped pathway at El Prado that is compliant to Americans with Disabilities Act Standards, as well as a new ramp from the upper courtyard by the Casa del Prado Theatre.
Some garden elements near the Botanical Building were restored in time for its reopening, including fountains as well as urns and balustrades along the bridge.
While the restored Botanical Building welcomes approximately 3,000 people per year, the renovated gardens aim to dazzle even more visitors.
Resources
Balboa Park Botanical. 2025. “The vision behind the revitalized Botanical Building and gardens: a conversation with Nan Sterman.” Forever Balboa Park. March 14, 2025.
Spurlock, Forever Balboa Park, City of San Diego. 2024. “Botanical Building and Gardens Phase 2.” Presentation, April 11, 2024. [pdf]
Van Grove, Jennifer. 2025. “Landscaping around Balboa Park’s Botanical Building will get a $10m makeover.” San Diego Union-Tribune. May 21, 2025.
Press Release, May 21, 2025: Forever Balboa Park Breaks Ground on Central Gardens Phase of Botanical Building Restoration
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