In those days, this valley icon belonged to Pat and Ben Laflin, Jr. The Laflins were good customers of the growers’ packaging business my husband and I eventually bought from my father. It was originally known as Laflin’s Oasis Date Gardens. The name Laflin was dropped when they sold the date gardens and shop, but I have been unable to find an exact date for the name change.
I was in the same class as their daughter, Susan, from kindergarten through 8th grade in the elementary school where Pat was my 1st grade teacher, and later my junior high Spanish teacher. When we moved on to high school, Susan was almost always in at least one of my classes. Susan (and, therefore, her family) was a happy and constant part of my childhood: singing quartet in 7th grade, Girl Scouts, church youth group, parties, Job’s Daughters. I always loved the short, palm-lined drive along the winding road that served as a driveway to their home, and thought stepping out your front door, and into a palm garden, had to be a pretty cool thing.
Laflin Date Gardens was founded in 1912 when Ben Laflin, Sr, and his wife Lucy, planted date seedlings. He soon replaced seeds with offshoots from Algeria as he learned more about the fruit. In 1939 they planted 24 Medjool off shoots, obtained from an original 9 offshoots which were brought to the US from Morocco in 1927. The gardens now include over 8,500 trees of a multitude of varieties of dates. Of course, as a child I thought Ben & Lucy were important because they had the neatest house, right across the dirt road from my friend’s house. I remember crawling out of their attic bedroom window for childhood adventures on the roof (sorry for letting out the secret, Susan).
There are a lot of cool facts I could tell you about Date Palms, their growth, their sex life, and their fruit. You can easily discover them for yourself by watching the free video inside the store, while you munch on their free samples of dates. Bring a picnic lunch to this one, or buy a sandwich inside, so you can enjoy a peaceful lunch at one of the picnic tables on the grass in the palm garden. A short walk through the native plants garden is also nice.
You'll need to unscrew the cap to retrieve the container. Log only (BYOP)