Several plant lovers plan to ask Carlsbad's City Council on Tuesday for a bit of free ground to grow what they hope will become a world-class botanical garden.

Group members include botanist Mardy Darian, who several years ago was involved with Vista's Alta Vista Gardens project, and bamboo enthusiast Ken Brennecke, who helped establish the American Bamboo Society some 20 years ago.

"We have quite an amount of horticultural experience behind us," Brennecke said Friday.

What they don't have is land or money to pay for a garden in Carlsbad. They're hoping city leaders will give them an indication Tuesday of whether they can have some hillside property in the eastern part of town.

Brennecke declined to state how much land they might like, commenting only, "I think I would prefer to leave that up to Carlsbad."

The city's mayor couldn't be reached for comment Friday.

Carlsbad has sometimes been described as tight-fisted, and groups have had mixed success when it comes to obtaining city land in cut-rate deals.

The New Village Arts theater organization won a rare, $1-a-year lease on a city-owned building in downtown in 2006, but other groups haven't been as lucky. The theater building's previous tenant -- a children's museum -- paid $3,155-a-month for that space.

Meanwhile, recent proposals to put a privately-run arena soccer field on city land and requests to purchase the Village H parcel for open space preservation haven't been approved.

Brennecke, a Ramona resident, said his group of plant enthusiasts considers Carlsbad to be its best option, though it wouldn't say no to land anywhere between Irvine and Chula Vista as long as the property was somewhere near the coast.

"We're looking for a partner -- a municipality, a corporation or both," he said.

He said that Darian and other people affiliated with the garden proposal have some outstanding plant specimens to contribute to the effort. Some of those plants were originally pledged to the Vista botanical garden project years ago, but that changed when Darian left that group's board in 2003, Brennecke said.

In 2003, most of the board of the Vista garden project resigned, citing differences over what the garden's vision should be. Departing members wanted an elaborate tropical forest covering the entire 13-acre site, while current plans are call for walking trails connecting a variety of smaller garden areas.

Call staff writer Barbara Henry at 760-901-4072.