Markham Nature Area in Concord

Markham Nature Area in Concord

The Markham Nature Area is a hidden little treasure. It's one of those places we stumbled upon by semi-accident and was amazed that we had not known about it before. Plus it's free.

There are three distinct areas or features of the Markham Nature Area:

The Tree Walk – this is an easy dirt walking trail. Along the path are various trees, many of which are marked with numbers. At the beginning of the trail you can pick up a map that will give you the name of each numbered tree.

I was surprised how much my kids liked the tree walk. They loved carrying the map, finding the tree numbers, and looking up the type of tree from their map. Honestly, I think if I took them back today, they wouldn't be able to remember a single tree name, but they still had fun. Plus, my preschooler had been confused about reading two-digit numbers; she tended to read them backward. By the end of the Tree Walk, she was an expert in reading two digit numbers because she wanted to be in charge of the map so much.

The International Garden – This is a shorter walking trail that passes through a garden that has been planted with plants from around the world, and arranged by region. The international areas include: Australia, Asia, South America, Africa, California, the Eastern U.S., the Mediterranean, and Europe.

My kids were less excited about this part of Markham Nature Area than the Tree Walk, but there were enough strange and interesting plants to hold their interest for a quick walk though. I liked that each plant had a little plaque with its name on it.

The Nursery – While a visit to the Markham Nature Area is free, they still need to pay for maintenance and other expenses. One way they do this is through plant sales at the plant nursery. The Nursery is open on Tuesdays from 9:00 to noon. They are also open on some Saturdays, but their Saturday sales appear to be done for the rest of 2012. If you'd like to know when the next Saturday plant sale will be you can visit their website here. 

The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek

The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek

Our only visit to the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek was recently during their Fall Festival. While I enjoyed wandering around the beautiful garden, and the kids had a great time with all the activities and crafts that were set up for the festival, it was hard for me to envision what a visit might be like on a regular, non-festival day.

A few of the plants we saw sparked the kid's interest – especially the large variety (and large in size!) cactus we looked at. Otherwise, I'm not sure how much interest they would have had in our visit without the festival going on.

However, the Ruth Bancroft Garden website has a calendar of events that includes some events, like an upcoming fruit tasting, that kids might also enjoy. The garden also offers tours, and special children's tours that could well make things much more interesting for kids to visit. We have had friends attend these children's tours, and they reported that everyone had an enjoyable and educational time.

I did not see any labeling plaques on any of the plants, so a tour could be really helpful to get a full appreciation of what you are seeing. There were several handouts that we didn't take that may have also provided more information about the plants.

We had not visited The Ruth Bancroft Garden before because, while children get in for free, admission for adults is $10. However, I just learned that on the first Tuesday of each month, the garden offers free admission to everyone. So that would be a great time to check them out.