Descanso Gardens, Botanical garden in La Cañada Flintridge, California, US.

Descanso Gardens is a 150-acre botanical garden on the northern edge of the San Rafael Hills in La Cañada Flintridge, California. Its mostly forested grounds hold artificial streams, ponds and lawns, with fruit trees including orange, peach, pear, pomegranate, crabapple, Prunus, grapes and passionfruit. Zones include a camellia forest, rose garden, lilac garden, Japanese garden, California garden, oak grove and oak woodland.

In 1784 the first Spanish governor of California granted Corporal José María Verdugo a 36,000-acre rancho that included this land; it stayed with the Verdugo family until 1869. E. Manchester Boddy, publisher of the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News, bought it in 1937, ran it as Rancho del Descanso and built a 22-room mansion designed by James E. Dolena. He sold the property to Los Angeles County in 1953, and in 1957 volunteers formed the Descanso Gardens Guild, which still runs the garden with the county. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.

The camellia collection began when E. Manchester Boddy bought up to 100,000 plants from the Uyematsu and Yoshimura nurseries in 1942, and it now holds over 34,000 camellias of more than 700 taxa across about 20 acres under California oaks. The International Camellia Society named it an International Camellia Garden of Excellence. The Full Moon Tea House in the Japanese Garden has blue roof tiles imported from Japan, and a Shinto bridge leads to the Minka, a farmhouse-style structure donated by Robert H. Kawashima in 1969.

The site opens daily and offers enough space to spend several hours moving between the different garden areas. Wide main paths lead through the grounds, while narrower trails branch into quieter sections.

Many of the camellias come from Japanese-American nurseries that had to sell their plants during World War II when their owners were interned. These plants now form one of the largest collections outside Japan.