Seeds of Wonder | Hamilton Children's Garden
Photos by Nick Ruddick and Sam Wells
Quail Botanical Gardens offers kids an exciting new playground to nurture their love of nature.
“There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.” —Garden designer and writer, Elizabeth LawrenceIt sounds like something out of a daydream, that magical garden Lawrence describes, but in Encinitas it’s easy to find. In June, Quail Botanical Gardens unveiled its new Hamilton Children’s Garden, a 1-acre play space that allows kids the chance to experience nature in fun and creative ways. Anchored by a lofty tree house, the garden is divided into several themed sections including art, music and the senses. Here’s a look at this not-so-secret garden, which promises enchantment for kids (and their parents, too).
Standing tall over the children’s garden is Toni’s Tree House, which rises more than 20 feet high. The tree house is a mix of plants and manmade materials, and kids can crawl around in the roots or scale the heights, finding plenty of nature stations as they explore. The structure is named after Toni Leichtag; the Leichtag Family Foundation is a major donor to the children’s garden.
The tree house offers a view of the entire children’s garden, billed as the largest one on the West Coast. To get that great view, kids can climb a rope bridge up to the crow’s nest, where Jack Grenda checks out one of the fake buzzards perched on the ledge. The tree house is also accessible by ramps, stairs and a rope ladder. (bottom)
Those who follow the Mountain Meander to the top have a reward in store: a stream where they can kick off their shoes and splash around. Black plastic trays that used to hold packaged food have been recycled and repurposed to use as rafts, sifters or whatever a kid’s imagination sees fit. Siblings Rian and Kai Betita square off in a game of tic-tac-toe next to the Amazing Sundial Garden, where children can use their shadow on the sundial to tell time, or run through the surrounding maze. (bottom)
A young visitor makes some noise on one of the drums in the Garden Rhythms section, where music can be created with gourds, bamboo chimes, a rock xylophone and other instruments in nature’s orchestra; benches are shaped like grand pianos. Brothers Aaron and Bryan Huang test out the stone fireplace that anchors the re-created ruins of an ancient mud house in the Earth Builders area, which allows kids to get down and dirty while building with natural materials.
Hamilton Children’s Garden
Quail Botanical Gardens
230 Quail Gardens Drive
Encinitas
760.436.3036
www.qbgardens.org