Centro Hortícola y Jardín Botánico de Cabrillo College, Botanical garden and horticulture center at Cabrillo College, Aptos, California.

Centro Hortícola y Jardín Botánico de Cabrillo College is an 11-acre site with greenhouses, shade structures, and spaces for plant propagation and organic farming instruction. The facility trains students through hands-on work in landscape design, pest management, and greenhouse operations.

The horticulture program served career students and home gardeners for nearly thirty years before the new Horticulture Center and Botanic Garden was formally inaugurated on 7 February 2003. The opening added a community building with a conference and events room, a classroom, a nursery, greenhouses, shade houses, raised cultivation beds, an herbarium and a laboratory.

The garden is organized into geographic sections: a Mediterranean basin bed with Salvia argentea and Salvia dominica, a central Mexican bed with the orange-flowered Salvia darcyi, a South American bed, and a United States bed with California sages such as Salvia apiana and Salvia clevelandii. The Rodgers Collection at the community building entrance shows drought-tolerant native plants, including Salvia spathacea, Mimulus and Eschscholzia californica.

The best time to visit is during plant market events when you can see student work and speak with them directly. The site is easily accessible on foot from the main campus areas.

The collection focuses heavily on California native plants and Mediterranean species, which serve as a living laboratory for water-efficient and climate-adapted growing methods. This plant selection reflects practical research into what thrives in local conditions.