Bay Meadows

Admire lush retreats carefully crafted by human hands, just a short trip from your Bay Meadows home. Whether you are looking for garden inspiration or some natural rejuvenation, visit these nearby gardens and slow things down – no green thumb required!

Persimmon Park is a celebrated community garden and gathering spot that cultivates friendships along with bushels of organic and sustainable fruits and veggies. It features 99 gardening beds available to Bay Meadows residents for tilling, planting and harvesting. Bay Meadows offers free classes at Persimmon Park led by our community gardeners from Homestead Design Collective. These year-round classes are open to the public. Visit here to get the next DIG IT event on your calendar.

Japanese Tea Garden in San Mateo transports you into a tranquil landscape as you wander the quiet pathways past blossoming Cherry Trees, Japanese Maples and Bonsai. The gardens contain a granite pagoda, tea house, Koi pond, wooden bridges and bamboo grove. The landscaping perfectly complements the blend of water and earth elements with hidden treasures everywhere, including a shrine behind a bamboo fence. A living highlight of the garden is the kidney shaped pond decorated with colorful Koi. Open: Mon-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat-Sun 11am-4pm.

San Mateo Garden Center has a Garden Shop that offers plants for sale to the public. This is a fund-raising enterprise as well as an ongoing educational and horticultural propagation center. The Garden Shop is open: Mon, Wed, & Fri 10:30am-12:30pm.

 

Golden Nursery in San Mateo has been family owned and operated since 1976. They strive toward maintaining unusual and abundant perennials, annuals, natives and edible plants from around the world. Open: Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 10am-5pm.

Yerba Buena Nursery in Half Moon Bay offers one of the most extensive selections of California Native Plants for the garden. Their 55+ years of experience with native plants will help you select and successfully grow beautiful and locally originating plants. Open: Tue-Sat 9am-5pm.

Filoli in Woodside has flowers, plants, and trees abound on this vast 654-acre historic landmark, including the 54,000 square foot Georgian country house and spectacular 16–acre English Renaissance garden. Stroll through numerous large gardens framed by brick walls and manicured hedges. Admission to Filoli allows visitors to explore the historic House and Garden at their leisure. The Café, and Garden and Gift Shop are open for your enjoyment.

Allied Arts Guild in Menlo Park is a beautiful and historic garden oasis, home to unique shops, artists’ studios, and Blue Garden Café. Also called the Blue Garden, the Garden of Delight features blue Nile lilies, aster, salvia and hydrangeas. Enjoy lunch at the Café looking out on the Garden of Delight with its bubbling, blue-tiled fountain. Open: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm.

Hakone in Saratoga is one of the oldest Asian estate in the Western Hemisphere. Whether you leisurely stroll the hill and koi pond garden, ascend the moon bridge, have tea overlooking the dry landscape garden, or enjoy quiet reflection in Hakone’s tea and bamboo gardens, you will experience the elixir of art and nature in seamless unity. The Cultural Exchange Center is an authentic reproduction of a 19th-century tea merchant’s house and shop.

Gamble Gardens in Old Palo Alto is a historic house and garden that serves as an oasis of beauty and tranquility, providing a community resource for horticultural education, inspiration, and enjoyment. The garden open to the public every day during daylight hours. They offer ongoing tours and events to see the magic of growing plants and learn from Master Gardeners.

Ladera Garden in Belmont is a garden and home decor destination – a true one stop shop for garden, gifts and flower arrangements. This full service nursery has a variety of stunning flowers, plants and related wares. You can also find items for the home ranging from art pieces, dishes, and glassware to candles, soaps and lotions.

Lyngso in San Carlos provides a variety of landscaping products and techniques that will work best to bridge the gap between your existing site and your dream garden. Escape to their display garden and see small vignettes in an outdoor setting letting the natural light of the sun bring out the beauty in the stones.

At Bay Meadows, we’re home to more than 18-acres of rambling open space, sustainably designed streetscapes, ribbons of trails and a series of one-of-a-kind pocket parks. Canopies of mature trees dot the landscape, decreasing heat island effects. Drought-tolerant and habitat-oriented plants lessen water consumption while providing favorite haunts for migrating birds and pollinating bees and butterflies. We even have an elaborate storm water treatment system that filters street runoff before it enters our onsite treatment pond.

Looking for a great place to ride? Bay Meadows and the surrounding San Mateo area are bike friendly and offer many different paths to ride and sights to see. The City of San Mateo even have an easy-to-use bike-sharing system, Bay Bikes. Plus, Bay Meadows has a convenient bike map that you can download here, so you can decide exactly where to ride. Some resident favorites include the Bay Trail as well as Coyote Point Park, and here’s a handy list of 10 sites within a six-mile bike ride. And join the Bay Meadows email list to stay on top of fun dates, such as Bike to Work Day 2017!