santa barbara botanic garden has burned

Here’s an update on con­di­tions, taken from the com­plete press release by the Santa Bar­bara Botanic Garden:

Fire offi­cials accom­pa­nied Botanic Gar­den Pres­i­dent Dr. Edward Schnei­der through the Gar­den, allow­ing him to assess the build­ings and grounds. “The good news is that the Meadow, Dis­cov­ery Gar­den, Tea­house, Desert and most of the Red­wood Exhibits are untouched,” said Dr. Schnei­der. “Unfor­tu­nately, the his­toric Camp­bell Bridge, the beloved Pritch­ett Path, the pop­u­lar Red­wood Tree Ring Exhibit, Oak Wood­land and Porter Path Exhibits were either destroyed or heav­ily dam­aged.” Fur­ther dam­age was also sus­tained in the ripar­ian cor­ri­dor canyon as the fire spread from Tun­nel Road down to Mis­sion Creek.

…Yes­ter­day, the Gar­den con­firmed loss of struc­tures on its grounds. The 1908 Gane House, the pro­posed cen­ter­piece of the Botanic Garden’s build­ing project, the Vital Mis­sion Plan, was destroyed. The Botanic Gar­den had hoped to reha­bil­i­tate the large Craftsman-style home and to seek his­toric land­mark sta­tus for it. Also lost in the fire was a deck over­look­ing Mis­sion Canyon Creek, a lathe house, and the Director’s res­i­dence and garage.

Orig­i­nal post:

I’ve been dis­tressed to read over the last cou­ple days that at least part of Santa Bar­bara Botanic Gar­dens has burned in the Jesusita Fire that’s tear­ing through the com­mu­nity. Has any­one heard any­thing more detailed?

This morning’s Los Ange­les Times described how the garden’s Gane House has burned:

In Mis­sion Canyon, the century-old Gane House at the 78-acre Santa Bar­bara Botanic Gar­den was engulfed in flames, leav­ing lit­tle more than three brick chim­neys standing.

“We’re very heart­bro­ken,” said Nancy John­son, the garden’s vice pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing and gov­ern­ment rela­tions. “We were hop­ing to restore it to its grandeur.”

Lost inside were all the gar­den­ing tools, hor­ti­cul­tural mate­ri­als, the metal shop that made tags to iden­tify plants, the over­stock of books pub­lished by the gar­den, and the office con­tents and com­put­ers of the head gar­dener and facil­i­ties main­te­nance man, John­son said. Bio­fuel gar­den­ing truck parked out­side also appear to have been destroyed.

And yesterday’s Sil­i­con Val­ley Mer­cury News ran a news wire story that mentioned:

[Carol] Ostroff said she evac­u­ated Tues­day and stayed with friends nearby until they too had to evac­u­ate on Wednesday.

“The wind kicked up, and we watched this firestorm on the hill,” Ostroff said.

Ostroff, who along with her hus­band acts as care­taker for the Santa Bar­bara Botanic Gar­den, sells tinc­tures and herbal wreaths from her home gar­den at the local farmer’s market.

“My gar­den is my life,” she said. “If I lose my gar­den I’m out of a job. My husband’s out of a job too.”

The SBBG has been an impor­tant force in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia native plant hor­ti­cul­ture, hav­ing intro­duced many inter­est­ing addi­tions that are a part of many gar­dens. My gar­den alone has Salvia leu­co­phylla ‘Amethyst Bluff,’ Galvezia juncea ‘Gran Canon,’ and Artemisia cal­i­for­nica ‘Canyon Gray.’ I hate to see such a resource turned to ashes.

May 08 2009 11:50 am | Categories: gardening • places | Tags: •

3 Responses to “santa barbara botanic garden has burned”

  1. Pam/Digging on 08 May 2009 at 2:21 pm #

    I’ve never been there, but I’m very sorry to hear it.

  2. Karen on 09 May 2009 at 8:08 am #

    I have vis­ited there sev­eral times. This is so sad.

  3. Town Mouse on 10 May 2009 at 7:42 pm #

    What a heart­break! And a reminder how fleet­ing every­thing is…

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