The Chinese Medicinal Garden. Photo by Michelle Bailey. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
The Huntington Library’s Chinese Medicinal Garden Open House on Wednesday, August 13, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., showcases more than 200 live plant species and over 100 unique seed varieties, including rare specimens not found elsewhere in the United States.
“Chinese medicine is rooted in one of the world’s oldest systems of plant knowledge,” according to The Huntington Library. “This new garden offers essential insights into humanity’s changing relationship with nature.”
The medicinal garden, known as Cǎi Yào Pǔ, officially opened May 22, 2024, as part of the larger Liu Fang Yuan (Garden of Flowing Fragrance). The 15-acre Chinese garden ranks among the largest classical-style Chinese gardens outside China.
Philip E. Bloom, curator of the Chinese garden, highlights the educational mission.
“The Cǎi Yào Pǔ is a place for learning about the relationships between plants and people,” Bloom said. “Indeed, in historical China, medicinal gardens were always a primary site where people went to learn about and think with plants.”
“The deepest purpose for us at The Huntington is to show the long relationship between humans and plants,” said Michelle Bailey, assistant curator at the Center for East Asian Garden Studies.
Chinese Medicinal Garden Open House will run on Wednesday, Aug. 13 at 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. For more call (626) 405-2100 or visit https://www.huntington.org/event/chinese-medicinal-garden-open-house. Tickets: Free with general admission (adults: $25 weekdays/$29 weekends; seniors 65+: $21/$24; students 12-18 or full-time with ID: $21/$24; youth 4-11: $13; children under 4: free).
