The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden welcomed its newest residents with a ribbon cutting on Friday — though the stars of the show were easy to miss. Guests peered past the bright red ribbon, searching for the tiny Torrey pine saplings just beginning to poke out of the mulch.
On that hot Friday morning, the trees didn’t provide much in the way of shade. Nevertheless, visitors looked on in awe, hands cupped across their brows, imagining the future.
In time, this budding grove will become a full-blown forest. Some trees could climb as high as 120 feet, like the famous Torrey pine in Carpinteria, planted in 1888 and now the largest in the world…