News release –for details or further interview information, news contacts: Huerta Volunteer Judy Sims hjsims@verizon.net 687-3262, or Huerta Manager Jerry Sortomme at jerrysortomme@hotmail.com 388-1921, or Museum Director Kristina Foss at

sbmission@aol.com 687-3724. These are contacts for press information, not for publication.

For Publication:

Hidden Gardens of the Mission Tour

Date of Event: Oct. 21^st, Sunday 2:00 to 4:00pm

Sponsored by the Santa Barbara Mission Museum: contact 687-6582

The public is invited on Sunday, Oct., 21^st, 2:00-4:00 pm, to tour Mission gardens

rarely seen by the public. The major tour focus will be a first-ever public tour of the SB Mission Museum’s living history “La Huerta” orchard garden project. Heritage plants from the 1769-1834 mission era will be featured, highlighting restoration begun in 2002 of the Santa Barbara Mission’s existing orchard grounds. The Museum’s Huerta Project inaugurated a state-wide effort to rehabilitate and restore authentic mission-era horticulture. The eventual goal is twofold: 1) saving early plant varieties and 2) exhibiting a living historical display of mission horticulture. The focus is to interpret Native American contributions to the Spanish-era horticulture history in Alta California.

The Tour includes plant “stories,” tasting opportunities/refreshments, relevant literature and signed, recently published horticultural books, shared heirloom seeds, historic tool and plant displays, as well as docent interaction and literature at five stations around the gardens.

The Overlook Garden highlights native plants and their use, emphasizing the vital role of the Chumash during the S.B. Mission-era. Other featured plants include mission era grapes, fruit trees, cactus, bananas, sugar cane, and several seasonal heritage varieties.

For additional tour information and tour reservations (not required, but preferred), please call 687-6582 . Cost of the tour is $12 per person for this fund-raising event.