Celebrate the achievements of great women gardeners! In his new talk, “Garden Goddesses: Four California Women and Their Legendary Gardens,” popular garden writer Donald Olson takes you on an informative and entertaining tour of some spectacular California gardens and introduces you to the remarkable women who created them. You’ll meet Kate Sessions, the “Mother of Balboa Park” in San Diego; Florence Yoch, California’s first female landscape architect and designer of the garden sets for Tara in “Gone With the Wind”; Virginia Robinson, creator of the first garden estate in Beverly Hills, scene of star-studded Hollywood parties; and Ganna Walska, a flamboyant opera singer who used her immense wealth to create Lotusland in Santa Barbara, considered by many to be among the top ten gardens of the world.

Donald has appeared as a featured speaker at many different venues, including Modernism Week in Palm Springs, the Pacific Northwest Flower & Garden Show in Seattle, the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, the Portland Garden Club, and at many other gardens, garden clubs, and bookstores. He has also been a featured guest on radio and television shows such as Frommer’s Travel Show, “In the Garden with Mike D’Arcy”, and AM Northwest. 

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All program fees include admission to the Garden, rain or shine (a $12 value per adult).

Please email gardenprograms@berkeley.edu to inquire if ASL Interpretation is available.

Cancellation Policy: Notification two weeks prior to program receives full refund; less than two weeks receives a one-time credit toward another Garden program to be used within 90 days; less than 48 hours from program start, no refunds or credit will be given for cancellations or absences.

In the event that the Garden has to cancel a program you will be offered a full refund or the option to transfer to another program.