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Tours
Tours of the garden are given daily. The current schedule is at the Japanese Tea Garden webpage of San Francisco City Guides, which sponsors the tours. The morning walks also include a tour of Golden Gate Park’s Stow Lake and Strawberry Hill. The tours are free; however, San Francisco City Guides does welcome donations, and guides request contributions from walkers on each City Guide tour. The recommended gift is $5.

The tour’s content typically includes, among other subjects, the origins of the garden in San Francisco’s Midwinter Fair of 1894; the flora, such as the pine, maple, and cypress trees, as well as the Garden’s cherry blossoms, azaleas, and camellias; the various structures and elements, e.g., the lanterns, bronze Buddha, and pagoda; the development of the garden over time, such as the addition of the Zen garden in 1953 and the reconstruction of the main gate in 1984; and, not least, the distinguished and anguished history of the Hagiwara family that ran the garden for most years before World War II.

Although all tours cover much of the same material, each guide brings his or her personal knowledge and experiences to the tour. Tour guides continually work to improve their presentations through lectures and presentations provided by the park’s staff and fellow guides, as well as through their own research and study.

Regular tours of the garden were first sponsored by the San Francisco Parks Trust, formerly Friends of Recreation and Parks, through the Golden Gate Park Walks Program. By 2007, however, only one volunteer, Ted Evans, was still giving tours. In 2010, when it appeared that all of the Golden Gate Park Walks Program would become defunct, Evans suggested that the Parks Trust turn the Program over to San Francisco City Guides.

In turn, under the Park Partners Program, the Parks Trust provided City Guides with fundraising expertise, financial services, insurance, and administrative support. In 2011 the San Francisco Parks Council and San Francisco Parks Trust merged to form the San Francisco Parks Alliance, the current fiscal and administrative sponsor of City Guides.