Conejo Valley Botanic Garden354

I just had a great experience here today with my daughter. We had a little trouble finding the kid's garden entrance, but were quite impressed once we entered. They featured a little tree house (very safe, very cute), a tea party enclosure, and a few other little cute things just for kids. The garden was somewhat small, but very well kept, and my daughter loved it -the tea party mostly. There was a plant sale going on in the back and I noticed friendly docents leading groups around the trails out back. A nice feature is that the garden is located within walking distance to a fancy playground and large grassy knolls for picknicking or what have you. We didn't explore to deep into the trails or botanical gardens, but based on what I saw I plan on going back to explore further. "Blister footed mommy" below is a bit of a nature-wimp, but the parts of our journeys that overlapped were described accurately in my opinion.

This is a great place to take the kids, young and old. The Kid's Adventure Garden has a treehouse, a bunny bench and an animal plant trail. Sunny the solar elephant pumps water and there are lots of flowers which bring in the butterflies and hummingbirds. There is even a shaded tea party garden and a pirate's cave! We saw the bushy green dinosaurs behind the alligator pond and a bug eating plant bog. We found a guide who led us down the shaded part of the nature trail. I will tell you the staff are VERY nice and knowledgeable. And the next thing we did was very fun. They have a small bridge leading from the adventure garden to the nature trail. The guide showed us an owl house, a bee tree and a tree pecked full of holes by the woodpeckers. We made it past the pack rat house to the moss covered dripping rocks. In the summer and fall the crawdads are easy to catch. Just use the fishing poles weighted down with bubble gum. You could throw the gum on the end of the string into the stream and catch crawdads. Totally cool, fun and different! Our kids from 2 to 10 had a blast!

I am a member and volunteer of the CVBG and have a response to "a big disappointment". Everyone sees things in a different light. Had mommy looked at our website she should have figured out to come in sturdy shoes, therefore no blisters. As the family walked along the nature trail they may have failed to see the ducks in the creek and the egret. I wonder if they saw "weeping rock" which drips water from an underground spring year-round. They walked under branches of the Coast Live Oak and the Valley Oak which may be 300+ years old. Did they see the Oak Galls on the Valley Oak? I hope our family noticed several Dusky-footed Wood Rat nests along our nature trail. To the garden volunteers, this is nature. Other things to look for in the Kids' Garden, Nature Trail and Main Garden are...Anna's Hummingbird, Fence Lizard, Ground Squirel, Brush Rabbit, Cabbage Butterfly, Swallowtail Butterfly, Scrub Jay, Pocket Gopher, Monarch Butterfly, CA Quail, Meadow Mouse, Road Runners, Red-tail Hawks and a variety of birds. We all know, when looking for wildlife it is a hit-and-miss deal with more misses than hits. We have not seen the Bobcat in the garden for many years now. The garden was/is a natural corridor for animals to reach the Santa Monica Mountains. I may remove the sign located in the entrance kiosk of the garden since we have not seen Bob for several years. Most people enter the garden through the entrance rather than exiting, therefore, they see the sign at the beginning of their adventure. At one time we had wonderful sineage along the nature trail which was a project by a scout working on his Eagle Scout Badge. Over the past few years we have lost several of our signs due to vandals. The vandals dig the signs and their cement base out and push them down the 40-50ft embankment and into the creek below. The volunteers do not have the manpower nor the means to retrieve the signs or to install new ones. The Garden uses native and water-wise plants. As spring approaches the garden is starting to bloom and the trees will be blooming soon. Come and visit us. Sturdy shoes and bottled water are suggested. The garden is a 501(c)(3) and is maintained by a small handful of people. We receive funding by memberships, donations and an occasional grant from the City for specific work.

We were so excited to go. You get there and there are NO clear signs for getting there , subsequently we went up and over an incredibly boring, long and hot trail. It's called a nature trail but there's almost NO nature. My kids were hot and bored. The adventure garden was very cute but your done with it in under 10 minutes. It's a longer drive from the freeway offramp to get there! I will tell you the staff was VERY nice and knowledgeable. And we did one thing that was very fun. They have a small bridge leading from the adventure garden to the nature trail( the one without nature) there was a great staffer there with fishing poles weighted down with bubble gum. You could throw them in the stream and catch crawdads. Totally cool, fun and different! If you go with small ones 2-4 just do the adventure garden and fish for crawdads you would have fun. Older kids will be bored. My 7 year old LOVES plants and he hated it! Don't do the horrible nature trail . It's awful ! Oh and I almost forgot. When you finish the trail there are posters warning about Mountain Lions! Are you kidding me?!?