Hakone Japanese Gardens

Today we  drove to Santa Cruz and stopped at a Japanese garden in Saratoga, California. It was built in 1915 as a  private retreat for friends and relatives of San Francisco art patrons, Oliver and Isabel Stine. Built on 18 acres on a Saratoga hillside, the city purchased the gardens in 1966 to protect it from subdivision and development.

The gardens consist of the Upper House, Lower House and four gardens, the Hill and Pond Garden, the Tea Garden, the Zen Garden and Kizuna-En which is the bamboo garden.

It was very peaceful and serene walking around the gardens. We spotted a deer in the bamboo garden munching away on the grass and small bamboo stems. There was a TV crew filming a commercial in the Pond garden near the bridge.

The cost was only $4 for each of us and well worth the price of admission. Dodie gave us a great history tour of the gardens and was very enthusiastic about her job.