The group's three initial goals were to find a site, to prepare a master plan, and to open a preview garden on the site.  With a great deal of footwork, some luck, and the support of local government, all three goals took shape between 1989 and 1998.  Vigil praises San Luis Obispo County government officials for their backing of the project, particularly Tim Gallagher, then County Parks Director, who early on sold the idea of the botanical garden to his superiors and the Board of Supervisors.  Vigil and Joe Donaldson - in 1989, a lecturer at Cal Poly - developed the basic concept of five mediterranean climate zone gardens.  She and Cal Poly landscape architecture students Erin Kelleher and

Allyson Biskner then put the word out that they were looking for a site for a major, regional botanical garden, 100 acres minimum.  The 150-acre site that they found in El Chorro Regional Park offers everything they wanted.  It fronts Highway 1, sits near San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, and Hearst Castle, features rolling hills, good soils, and no horticultural limitations, and is already zoned for a public space.  "Everything basically fell into place," she said.  As did the bulk of the funding for the master plan.  San Luis Obispo County was in the process of disbursing money from a settlement with an oil company in 1994 when the Friends applied for, and received, a grant to support the second goal.

With that assistance, a grant from the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust, and money from their own funds, the Friends asked The Portico Group to turn their dreams into a master plan.  The garden will include five Signature Collections, one from each mediterranean climate zone; interpretive stations with focused learning about each region; Gardens of Exploration, illustrating the overlap of landscape and culture; an outdoor amphitheater; a propagation center; and a visitor center complex that begins the interpretive process as soon as visitors enter.  "One thing we wanted to do with this, and it's something you don't see in that many botanical gardens around the United States, is to get

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a strong orientation in the visitor center itself and make the global connections," explains Michael Hamm, principal in charge and lead designer for The Portico Group. The connections begin at home.  Passing through the Chumash Circle entry plaza, visitors are introduced to the area's Native American culture.

  Inspired by the local tribe's belief in "the circle of life," the court features Chumash pictographs and petroglyphs inscribed in the paving, and acts as a gathering and orientation space.  From the parking lot to the building entry, the story of water in mediterranean climates - a story of scarcity, occasional abundance, and dependence - is told in a connected series of small pools and runnels, and in storm water cisterns that collect roof runoff from the visitor center.