Magnolias hit peak at Golden Gate Park
Magnolias are in peak bloom at the San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park, giving visitors the opportunity to see the stunning pink and white blossoms at their most bountiful through Presidents Day weekend.
The Botanical Garden is home to one of the most significant conservation collections of magnolias in the United States, with more than 200 trees and 63 different species of the plant, according to Gardens of Golden Gate Park, which runs the botanical garden.
The flowers are in bloom from mid-January through March, but the peak bloom lasts only a few weeks, according to the botanical garden. Still, throughout the entire bloom season, “velvety silver buds and saucer-sized pink, white, and magenta flowers make an appearance,” the website says.
San Francisco’s collection of magnolias started in 1940, when the newly opened San Francisco Botanical Garden featured its exotic cup and saucer magnolia (Magnolia campbellii), the first of its kind to bloom in the United States, drawing a huge crowd. That plant still stands in the garden today.
Now, the garden features magnolias from across the world.
“Endemic to Asia and the New World, Magnolias are ancient flowering trees that have endeared themselves to humans for millennia,” the garden’s website says. “Here in mild San Francisco, we cultivate species from across most of their range, from the monsoon-influenced, temperate forests of the Himalayas to the cloud forests of Mesoamerica.”
Daily admission tickets to the Botanical Garden are free for San Francisco residents with proof of residency, like an ID with a San Francisco address or a utility bill or a lease or rental agreement showing name and address, and everyone gets in free 7:30-9 a.m. For nonresidents, tickets are $13 for adults, $7 for seniors over 65 and for youths 12-17, $3 for children 5-11, and free for children 4 and under. Tickets are available at https://gggp.org/magnolias.