Spotlight on Sonoma parks: Garden Park

Exploring the almost two dozen regional county and city green spaces in the Valley .|

In this series, the Index-Tribune guides readers through every regional, county and city park in Sonoma Valley.

On the east side of Sonoma where the fancy homes start to give way to the countryside is a 6-acre park unlike all the rest. Sonoma Garden Park is a relatively young sprout — created in 1977 after schoolteacher Pauline Bond deeded her land to the city to be used as a public park — that started to really grow roots when the Sonoma Ecology Center took over operations in 1993.

The park is all about gardens and growing things and, above all else, education. There are signs everywhere along the paths about water-use strategies, insect pollinators, butterflies, crops, native birds. There’s a large native-plant nursery, where the Ecology Center raises the species particularly adapted for our area, and a chicken coop whose residents are not at all shy about speaking up.

A substantial part of the park is devoted, appropriately enough, to sunny garden plots for the community to rent. The variety and higgledy-piggledy aspect of the plots and their raised beds and containers lends this section the air of an exceptionally cheerful cemetery, complete with children and dogs. But heed the signs: No matter how tempted you may be, don’t pick anything you don’t plant.

This is not a park to visit if you want a brisk hike or time communing with uncultivated nature in quiet solitude. But it is an ideal place for children to learn about where their food comes from, as well as the birds and the bees (literally, not in the euphemistic sense). Sonoma Garden Park is a splendid resource for beginning gardeners, or those new to Sonoma’s Mediterranean climate, for learning about what plants can thrive under what conditions. And experienced gardeners will appreciate the park’s variety and vitality and maybe pick up some tips along the way as well.

Picnic tables are on the grounds for those who bring their own fresh-vegetable meals (or takeout pizza and burgers, for that matter), and a market operates on Saturday mornings during the growing season.

Highlight: Grandmother Oak, a valley oak estimated to be more than 400 years old, towers near the straw-bale barn.

Drawback: Be prepared to read a lot of signs.

Reason to visit: “We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden” (and learn about water-use strategies).

Dogs: Allowed.

Admission: Free. Parking lot on site.

Open: Dawn to dusk daily. Harvest Market open seasonally Saturdays 9 a.m. to noon.

Address: 19996 Seventh St. E., Sonoma.

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