The park opened to the public in 1993, saving part of one of the few remaining navel orange orchards in the Riverside area. Situated on land considered the finest navel orange growing region in the world, the park has two goals - to tell the story of the citrus industry, and to preserve a vanishing cultural landscape. The park includes part of the historic Gage Canal, which still provides irrigation water for the groves.
Future plans for the park include:
An orientation center and museum
An operating packing house
A workers' camp
A wealthy grower's home built on a knoll which may serve as a restaurant and interpretive exhibit
A middle class grower's ranch
An early citrus settlement with water and land offices, a boarding house, a citrus pavilion, a packing shed and more.
An orientation center and museum
An operating packing house
A workers' camp
A wealthy grower's home built on a knoll which may serve as a restaurant and interpretive exhibit
A middle class grower's ranch
An early citrus settlement with water and land offices, a boarding house, a citrus pavilion, a packing shed and more.
Around the fringes of the original grove a varietal collection of over 100 trees has been planted. Though mostly well labelled, sadly several interesting specimens were not. The park brochure claims this is the only publically accessible citrus collection in the United States.
An example in the park of the Sweet Orange variety Cipo - the only known orange to have downward weeping branches. I have seen this described as a 'prostrate form'.
The park's specimen of the Finger Lime, Microcitrus australasica. A slightly tatty tree with considerable branch dieback.
Also at Riverside
