Regional Parks Botanic Garden

The Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Regional Park is one of the East Bay's best-kept free secrets — a 10-acre botanical garden dedicated exclusively to California native plants, maintained by the East Bay Regional Park District and open to the public at no charge every day of the week.

The garden's organizing principle is genuinely educational: all plants are California natives, organized by the regional ecosystems they come from. Sections represent the Central Valley, the Sierra Nevada, the North Coast redwood forest, the desert, the Channel Islands, and other distinct California environments. A walk through the whole garden is essentially a walk through California's biodiversity — a concept that resonates with kids who have traveled to different parts of the state and can connect plant families to places they've been.

Spring is when the garden earns its 4.8-star rating most emphatically — the wildflower sections become a riot of California poppies, lupine, and native annuals that create the kind of photographic scene people drive an hour to see. If your visit overlaps with March through May, prioritize this garden.

Located within Tilden Regional Park adjacent to the Little Farm and Environmental Education Center, the Botanic Garden combines naturally with a broader Tilden family day. A morning that includes the Little Farm (free goat feeding), the Botanic Garden (free native plant exploration), and a picnic in the park covers several hours of genuinely enriching outdoor family time at essentially zero cost.

Free guided docent tours are offered on some weekends — check nativeplants.org for the current schedule. They're worth joining with curious older kids.