TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

You may have noticed some interesting-looking shade structures going up where Mill Creek Linear Park crosses 18th Street. And later this summer, you'll be able to go in -- and enter another country.

In late August, the city is planning to open the first phase of the Sister City Gardens, a collection of three immaculately landscaped and unique gardens that commemorate Bakersfield's relationships with its sister cities.

Three gardens have been built -- one for Cixi, China; one for Bucheon, South Korea, and one for Wakayama, Japan.

The gardens are undergoing final tweaks and are planned to officially open in late August, said Recreation and Parks Director Dianne Hoover.

"It's going to be extremely relaxing. It's going to be serene," said Debbie Scanlan of the Economic and Community Development Department as she showed a reporter around the gardens Thursday morning. "It will teach our community about our sister cities."

The gardens have 61 varieties of trees, flowers and other plants, some of them native to China, Japan and South Korea, and others approximations chosen for their ability to withstand Bakersfield's heat.

Each garden is different. In the Cixi, China, garden, there are strawberry trees and day lilies. The garden for Wakayama, Japan, is surrounded by a black metal fence cut with silhouettes of the sun and sunrays. It's topped with blue archways echoing the shapes of pagoda roofs. Underneath are Japanese maple trees, Accolade flowering cherry trees, a tree called Mops Mugo pine and other plants and grasses.

The garden for Bucheon, South Korea, is centered on a large stone planter. Purple and red plants and flowers -- Elijah blue fescue grass, crimson pygmy barberry, Red Baron Japanese blood grass and Hen and Chick plants -- will form the yin-yang sign. Each garden has benches and will have flags of their respective countries.

A colorfully tiled fountain sits at the street side of the gardens, and a large, modern shade covers a central area and a tiny stage.

The total cost for the first phase was $1.2 million, paid for with a state grant through the Economic and Community Development office.

Gardens for the remaining two sister cities -- Santiago de Queretaro, Mexico, and Amristar, India, are planned for the second phase of the gardens, across 18th Street. Construction on those two is expected to start this fall, and they could open next spring, Scanlan said. Funding for that phase will come from state grants.

The gardens were designed by Parsons Corp. and originally were planned to be part of Central Park, said Dick Meyer, president of Meyer Civil Engineering.

The city later decided they would take up too much space in Central Park. Meyer's firm designed Mill Creek Linear Park and took over the Sister City Gardens plans from Parsons, adapting them to a smaller space.

"We had quite a challenging task in fitting all that in there, plus providing a nice gathering place and fitting it together thematically," he said.

The wide variety of plants and trees is a detailed approach, meant to honor each of the sister cities, Meyer said. The red, black and jade green of the fountain tiles ties together with the Asian themes of the gardens. The black wrought iron fences tie the gardens to Mill Creek Linear Park across the street.

But the shade structure in the middle is also a big part of the design, Meyer said.

"I'm really pleased at how much shade it casts," Meyers said of the central shade structure, one of his favorite parts of the gardens. "It's really central to the whole project. It will help it be a comfortable gathering place, which is really hard to find in Bakersfield."

"We wanted to make it as cool a place as possible to enjoy."

John Hefner, president of the Bakersfield Sister City Project Corp., said the seed for the project came from other Southern California cities with sister city gardens.

"We thought, 'What a nice idea ... to let people know what our sister cities are.'"

The idea behind sister cities "is to open up a relationship and cultural awareness, and this is a great way to show that," he said.

Visitors from the sister cities "can be proud" of that relationship when they visit the gardens, Hefner said.

Some of Bakersfield's sister cities have commemorated Bakersfield with gardens. Buchan, South Korea, has a park dedicated to Bakersfield that commemorates American soldiers who died in the Korean War, Hefner said.

Michael Salgado was watching over the Creekside Collectibles antique store, right next to the gardens, on Thursday morning. He said the development of the Mill Creek area, including the Sister City gardens, was one reason store manager Rosie Hatch located her shop there just a few months ago.

"This obviously is going to be a focal point," he said of the gardens. "It's something people can walk, see, breathe, and doesn't have a roof over it."