- Palomar College Arboretum
Palomar College Arboretum
Friends of the Palomar College Arboretum
Site Menu
Site Search
Palomar College Arboretum
You are here:
Palomar Home
Palomar College Arboretum
A botanical garden where you can enjoy nature
We were recently featured in the
Hidden San Diego Instagram
A reminder that its always a good time to walk this gem of North County!
Exploring the Amazing Diversity of California’s Natives Plants, With a Focus on the Coastal Sage Plant Community
March 7th
Talk and Walk
9am-10:15am Talk
10:30-11:30am-Walk
For this Talk & Walk we will discuss the flora of California and briefly cover what makes it one of the worlds biological hotspots. We’ll learn why California is home to the second most endangered species in the US (second to Hawaii) and get a chance to walk a section of the endangered Coastal Sage Habitat on the east of the San Marcos campus.
Meet at
MD 157
(Please click
here
for a map)
Bring water and comfortable closed toed walking shoes.
RSVP to Tony Rangel at arangel@palomar.edu
What a busy 2025 for the Edwin and Francis Hunter Arboretum!
Here are just a couple highlights of the work completed over the past year:
• For Earth Day, a new Native Peoples of California Garden on the South Side of MD was installed.
• The Arboretum hosted 2 clean-up days, 3 formal tours, including the wildly popular Fig Tour and several other Arboretum tours.
• New trees and shrubs have been added to the California Channel Islands garden located near the Baseball field.
• New fig wasps were identified on campus and an image of the pollen from
Hibiscadelphus distans
was captured, answering a long-standing question on if our
H. distans
plants produced pollen.
• Embossing tags have begun to be printed for many of the new plantings.
• Updates are being made to our plant database system which already is showing that there are 135 palm species, more than 39 oak species and at least 110 Ficus species located in the Arboretum’s collection (to name a few)!
• The Hubbell Structure located at the Arboretum entrance was recently repaired.
• Arboretum signs were installed thanks in part of a grant from Hunter Industries.
• Many weedy specimens were cleared from the lower portions of the Arboretum, opening areas for existing specimens and for new plants which had been housed in the nursery.
• Large areas of the campus have been mulched.
• Several great plants were donated from the San Diego Zoo and by several community members.
• The Arboretum continues to grow and cultivate rare and beautiful plants in the nursery, many of which will be making it into the landscape soon!
Thank you to all of the committee members, volunteers and community members for their support over this past year!
Wishing all of you a pleasant holiday season!
Admission to the Arboretum is FREE
pen to the public from one hour after sunrise to one hour before sunset.
We are located at 1140 West Mission Road
San Marcos, CA 92069
A Parking permit is required, but may be purchased online using the
ParkMobile
app ($1/hour)
· Use Zone # 7514 for visitor spaces
For more information, visit
Palomar’s Parking & Procedures
A map of the main trails in the Arboretum garden is available
here
, but please know that our entire campus is part of the Arboretum. Wander, wonder and enjoy the amazing collection of plants that are on display
The main trails of the Arboretum are Wheelchair Accessible.
Listing of Garden Themes Currently On the San Marcos Campus
Feel free to
We are proud of our colleague, Professor Emeritus Wayne Armstrong, who has amassed an enormous amount of botanical information and other natural phenomena for which he is world-renowned. This information includes a thorough discussion of the plants and history of the arboretum.
This information can be found on his website,
Wayne’s Word
For the latest online articles and information from Wayne’s Word on the interesting plants at Palomar College, head
here
In 2015, the
Palomar College Arboretum was renamed Edwin and Frances Hunter Arboretum at Palomar College.
Click Here
for more information.
Recent Events
The Strange and Wonderful Life of Figs
September 13, 2025
Professor Emeritus Wayne Armstrong provided fascinating information about the many fig plants and fig wasp species in the world. Here, visitors were invited on a tour to see several of the fig species planted throughout the Arboretum
Tony Rangel at the roots of one of the more striking specimens in the Arboretum
Earth Day Planting Event April 22, 2025
Thanks to our student volunteers for helping out during the clean-up!
Contact Information
Palomar College, San Marcos Campus
1140 W. Mission Road
San Marcos, CA 92069
Tony Rangel
Arboretum President
Email
arangel@palomar.edu
Phone
(760) 744-1150, ext.
2133
Christina Fuller
Website administrator
Email
cfuller@palomar.edu
Phone
(760) 744-1150, ext.
8687
Recent Posts
Cochineal, the crimson bug; article authored by Wayne Armstrong
April 2025 Arboretum and Bird Identification Tour
November 2024 Arboretum Cleanup
The Edwin & France Hunter Arboretum won '
Project of the Year
' 2021
May
View Calendar
What are you looking for?
Search This Site
A-Z Index