Rancho Los Cerritos Garden Tours

Free Docent-led tours of the historic Rancho Los Cerritos gardens will be held on the second and fourth Sundays of the month through November. Tours begin on the half hour between 1-4 p.m. Visitors can see these historic gardens first planted by John “Don Juan” Temple in the 1840s. Some trees date to the 1840s when John Temple, owner of the 27,000-acre Rancho from 1844-1866, planted the first garden. In 1931, renowned landscape architect Ralph Cornell created an estate garden for Llewellyn Sr. and Avis Bixby, preserving Temple’s remaining trees, reintroducing flora that was here in the 19th century, and adding fruit trees and native plants.