Santa Cruz County is not the consolation prize for a day you did not feel like driving. We have a botanic garden, a working organic teaching farm you can walk for free, a two-acre demonstration garden, and a valley full of u-pick berries, apples, dahlias, and lavender.

South is the quieter direction, and the one most Santa Cruz gardeners underrate. The gardens down here are smaller and older than the marquee estates up north. They lean historic and native, and most of them are free.

Nobody drives north and south in the same day. This guide is the northern half of that decision: six realistic day trips out of Santa Cruz, each built around a town or a stretch of coast, mixing gardens, nurseries, and farms that actually chain together.

There is a particular kind of summer afternoon that only a u-pick farm gives you. Santa Cruz sits in the middle of some of the best pick-your-own country in California: berries, apples, dahlias, and a lavender labyrinth, most of it within half an hour.

Most of us buy our tomato and pepper starts wherever is closest, and that works fine for a standard Early Girl. But if you want real heirloom variety, a few nurseries within a couple of hours of Santa Cruz are worth the drive.

If you have caught the succulent habit, you already know the local garden center only takes you so far. The best succulent nursery in the region is about half an hour south of Santa Cruz, and the dry gardens up north are worth a day of their own.

Buying California native plants takes a little more planning than a weekend run to the garden center. Most native nurseries are small and mission-driven, and many open only a day or two a week, so it pays to know where they are and when they are open.

Head south around the bay and the gardens change character. They are smaller and older than the estate gardens north of Highway 17, and they lean historic: adobe courtyards, mission gardens, and a working farm or two.

Point the car north over Highway 17 and, within about two hours, you can reach a Japanese hillside garden built in 1917, a marquee estate garden with an orchard of about 250 fruit trees, a cactus collection first planted in the 1880s, and some of the best botanic collections in the country.

Living in Santa Cruz County puts you within about two hours of some of the best gardens, nurseries, and farms in California. Pick a direction first: north over Highway 17, south around the bay, or a day close to home.