The Trolls Left South Coast Botanic Garden. Now It's the Dogs' Turn.

"Grab your leash and your fur babies (fur babies=dogs) and head to the Garden!"

That line sits at the top of South Coast Botanic Garden's dog policy page. The text below it explains how limited dog access usually is. Dogs come in only during designated Dog Walking Hours, which require an advance reservation. Leashes stay on everywhere on Garden property, the parking lot included. According to the Garden's 2026–2027 season announcement, those hours fall on the last Sunday of each month. On most days of the year, the 87 acres off Crenshaw Boulevard are closed to dogs.

That changes this Saturday. The Garden spent most of 2026 on two headline exhibits, and both closed on October 4. Dinosaurs return November 7. In the gap between them, the Garden scheduled Dogtoberfest for every weekend. For the next four weekends, the Peninsula's largest public garden is set up mainly for dogs and the people walking them.

What closed on October 4

Thomas Dambo's TROLLS: A Field Study ran from March 1 through October 4, 2026. It was a traveling exhibition and never meant to stay. It brought 12 reclaimed-wood trolls to the Garden: Hasse, Poppy, Birch, Valle, Bignut, Taks, Kirse, Boge, Wilde, Anja, Lilnut and Larke. The Daily Breeze reported that the sculptures averaged 8 to 10 feet tall and took about 45 minutes to see in a full loop. Taks was the troll who marked the route with sparkling ribbons. Palos Verdes Pulse described the trolls tucked among the trees rather than lined up. One was asleep on the ground, one had a bin over its head, and Hasse stood upside down, peering through his legs.

SOAR – Tropical Butterflies closed the same day. The trolls are gone from the Garden, and no new exhibit opens until November.

Six days on either side

Dogtoberfest runs every Saturday and Sunday from October 10 through November 1. It starts six days after the trolls closed. Dinosaurs Around the World: The Great Outdoors opens November 7, six days after Dogtoberfest ends. The dog event fills almost exactly the space between the two big exhibits.

Here is how that compares with a usual month:

October's regular Dog Walking Sunday is October 25, which falls inside Dogtoberfest anyway. The next regular dog Sunday after the festival is November 29, by which point the dinosaurs will have been in the Garden for three weeks. For dog owners on the Peninsula, these eight days are the only stretch of the fall when dogs can visit more than once a month.

What the Upper Meadow becomes

This is Dogtoberfest's third year. The Garden is setting up the Upper Meadow as a biergarten with more community seating than in past years. Food and beer are sold by Dottie's at the Koi Pond, dogs can enter races, and there's a photo spot. The Garden lists several additions for 2026: a larger band with dancers, more Oktoberfest-style competitions, an expanded VIP beer tasting along the Pup Crawl, and a VIP ticket for dogs.

The VIP tiers cost more than general admission, but the Garden lists exactly what each one includes:

• VIP Human, $20 for members and $38 for nonmember adults. It includes four beer tastings along the Pup Crawl with a root beer option, one free beer, the Bierhound Express lane at Dottie's, a VIP bar, a make-and-take pretzel necklace, and first pick for the competitions.
• VIP Dog, $19 per member's dog and $25 per nonmember's dog. This tier is new this year.
• Nonmember seniors and students pay $34 for VIP, and children 3 to 12 pay $28. Children 2 and under get in free.

At the general-admission level, members pay nothing and their dogs pay $6. For a household that already holds a membership, a full afternoon at Dogtoberfest costs about the same as a coffee.

Where the leash still stops

On regular Dog Walking days, the Garden keeps dogs out of a few areas, including the Dorothy and John Bohannon Rose Garden and the Koi Pond. Dogs can go almost everywhere else on the 87 acres, on leash. The Dogtoberfest page doesn't spell out its own route limits, so the Dog Walking rules are the closest guide the Garden has published.

This fall, some parts of the Garden are fenced off for everyone, dogs or not. A September 29 update titled "Growing for What's Next" lists the work underway:

1. Amphitheater Lawn. New grass is going in so the lawn is ready for the annual paperwhite bloom on the hill behind it.
2. Fuchsia Garden. This garden near the entrance is closed for repairs and a redesign, part of a wider rethink of what visitors see when they first come through the gates.
3. Seasonal closures. Some areas are or will be closed through fall and winter while the Garden prepares for what it expects Super El Niño to bring.
4. The Marilyn and John Long Children and Family Garden. Work continues on this 3.5-acre project.

The plans for the Children and Family Garden, first announced at a 2023 groundbreaking, include a canopy walk over the Banyan Grove, a marine fossil dig, and a plant maze. As of the September update, it was still under construction.

So a Dogtoberfest walk will follow a somewhat shorter route than a spring walk would. The Upper Meadow is open, and the Amphitheater Lawn is fenced off while new grass grows in.

Why the gap goes to a festival

The season announcement also explains who pays for all this. Los Angeles County owns the land. The nonprofit South Coast Botanic Garden Foundation pays for every exhibit, program, and special event. The September update thanks visitors for memberships, tickets, donations, and even "that cocktail you purchased at Dottie's at the Koi Pond." It says that money goes toward projects like the lawn and the Children and Family Garden.

Seen that way, Dogtoberfest has a clear job. Without a headline exhibit, a garden still in the middle of construction would have little reason for repeat visits in October. A weekend festival with separate dog tickets, a biergarten, and a VIP tier gives people a reason to come back four weekends in a row. The money it brings in goes to the Foundation that is paying for the fenced-off work.

The calendar after the dogs

The rest of the season's schedule is already partly set. Some dates are confirmed and some are not:

• Select nights this fall: Magic of the Jack O'Lanterns returns, produced with Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group.
• November 7: Dinosaurs Around the World returns after its first run last year. It has 10 life-sized animatronic dinosaurs, including a Tyrannosaurus rex, plus several new species and a new interactive photo spot.
• November and December weekends: hands-on workshops. DIY cornucopias run November 7 and 8, simmer pots November 14, pressed-flower lanterns November 21, and wreath making November 29 and December 5 and 6.
• Winter: The Garden has promised "an all-new immersive light experience" but hasn't announced a name or dates. The Garden's Astra Lumina page still shows dates from the 2025 season, so the Garden's own announcement is the best guide for now.
• February: the Lunar New Year Celebration runs each weekend for the Year of the Fire Goat.
• March 2027: Spiked: A Celebration of Agave returns for three weekends, plus one adults-only evening.
• April 2027: Vivid Creatures makes its West Coast premiere. The exhibit has six sculptures, 8 to 23 feet tall, by Portland artists Heather BeGaetz and Fez BeGaetz. The subjects include a white-tailed deer, a dragonfly, a sandhill crane, a fox squirrel, and a brittle button snail, and the sixth piece was commissioned for this Garden.
• May 2027: SOAR – Tropical Butterflies opens its seventh season, after a month-long preview in April.

The permanent exhibition, Hide and Seek: Art Meets Nature, stays all year and is getting new interpretive signage this season. The Garden's homepage lists daily hours as 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Event days can run on different schedules, so check the Dogtoberfest page for each weekend's details before you go.

After November 1, dogs go back to one Sunday a month, by reservation, and the Upper Meadow gets ready for the dinosaurs.

At Jen Caskey Group, we pay attention to the parts of Peninsula life that never show up in a listing, like which weekend the Garden opens up to dogs. If a fall afternoon at Dogtoberfest has you wondering what your own home on the Peninsula is worth, we're glad to put together a home valuation for you.