The collection includes rare varieties such as Acer pentaphyllum, Cornus capitata, Holboellia coriacea, Illicium simonsii, and Rosa chinensis var.

The Sonoma Botanical Garden property was originally a sandstone quarry that previously produced road foundation stone.

[5] In 1968, San Francisco resident Jane Davenport Jansen purchased forty-plus acres northeast of Glen Ellen, CA for a summer home.

The property was named Quarryhill Botanical Garden and a small nursery was established to cultivate the wild-collected seeds.

[16] From its founding in 1987 through 2017, staff of the garden went on annual expeditions to collect seeds and herbarium specimens from the following Asian regions: Hubei, Sichuan, Taiwan, Tibet, Yunnan; India - Himachal Pradesh; Japan - Hokkaidō, Honshū, Kyūshū, Shikoku, Yakushima; and Nepal.

The garden's collection of includes approximately 25,000 wild origin plants, representing over 2,000 individual species.