Blue Ribbon Garden in DTLA

I realized i never shared these pictures of a great garden that i visited for the first time 2018! The weekend after the Fling, i had less than 48 hours at home (in SoCal/LA area). Rather than spending that driving to and from LAX, I decided to stay in DTLA. One of my favorite things to do in downtown is wander around - and this trip, i found three cool new-to-me gardens. The first was the Spring Street Community Garden, where i got cuttings!

From there, i headed over to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Hiding behind it is the Blue Ribbon Garden. I first learned about this garden from someone else's blog post, and this was my first visit. It is very cool! This is a pretty picture-heavy post, as I took way too many pictures of this pretty garden.

We start by going up the stairs:

there are no signs (that i could find anyway)

 The garden is tucked right up to the concert hall - which means the silver/aluminum walls make for some awesome backdrops:

Wow!

 The plants were actually fairly well labeled, although i didn't pay much attention to them. Instead, i wandered around taking pictures of these red flowers popping against the silver walls.

Pretty!

 There were a lot of smaller flowers too - very pretty when you looked at them close up

pretty blue!

 The garden is somewhat shady, so even in early May (this was May 12) there was a lot of green.

this part was long and skinny

 Here is a sign!

 And more blue flowers - some parts of this garden looked like an Annie's Annual planting catalogue!

that is obviously a compliment!

 The beds were very curvy, with paths (and light posts...) throughout the garden:

no grass here!

 The skies were overcast that day, but that just made for better pictures. And the skies and building matched each other!

I'm sure i should have looked up which tree this is...

 There is a sculpture in the middle, that in some signs was referred to as a fountain. I saw no water, and this was the best picture i got without other people in it.

although the garden wasn't that busy

 More of those red flowers, and i would not mind hanging out at those tables for my lunch if i worked nearby (i do not, sadly)

everything was clean and well taken care of, especially for a publicly accessible garden

 In the middle of the garden was another sign with more information:

more information on the garden

 Another view of the concert hall, fountain/statue and those red flowers

so pretty!

the building makes such a unique background

 There was one bed that seemed to be suffering from over-growth - although this senna wasn't complaining

Some more up close plant shots - there are so many great plants in this garden!

Foliage as well as flowers

towards the end of the garden, the palette changed to more white flowers

including poppies

 And there were more places to sit:

 so you could really admire the view:

i maybe took to many pictures of the garden against the building?

A funny (and very LA-thing) - in the "canyons" between parts of the building, there were at least 3 groups of people that looked like fashion bloggers taking pictures. I didn't realize this was such a popular photo shoot location!

one last picture before we head out

This was a great surprise garden! I'll have to go back and see what it looks like when all the trees have leafed out? I'll add it to the list for 2019!