Visit to the LA Flower District

For my grandma’s 80th birthday, we wanted to get some arrangements for the house. I looked up information on the flower market in downtown and was happy to find that they were open on Saturdays to the public from 6 am to noon. We got there around 11 and although they said that one structure closes at 1 and the other at 2, most vendors had already packed up and closed. The selection was definitely limited, however, on the other hand, we found great deals on bunches of flowers. We got a tropical bouquet for $2 and two dozen roses for about $7.50 each and three stems of hydrangeas for $5. The entrance fee for each person was $1. It’s usually $2 on the weekdays. They are closed on Sundays.

Look at these roses.

A row of hydrangeas.
Check out the calla lilies at the bottom.
I've never seen gray hydrangeas before, but they are lovely.
I didn't catch the name of the white flowers but don't they look like wild flowers?

I learned from Marianne, our flower arrangement class teacher, that all the wholesalers get their shipment of flowers on Monday so the flowers you get on Friday or Saturday have been there for a full week, which is why they are eager to sell off the flowers by Saturday because they will be getting in new shipments on Monday. But if you want to get the freshest flowers, you probably want to go in earlier in the week unless you have a huge refrigerated room to store them in yourself.

Once we got home, we greened the flowers and my mom and I had a contest to see who can make a better arrangement.

Here's my mom's.

Here's mine.

I like to believe mine was superior, but the next morning when we woke up, my mom had the last laugh. I went down to see the arrangements to find that mine had been poached, while my mom's remained perfectly in tact. Hmm... highly suspicious.

Turns out, I stuck my flower stems past the oasis foam, which is the water filled foam that feeds the flowers, so my stems were sticking out on all sides of the oasis, and thus not getting any water. Ooops. My hydrangeas were shrived up by morning. It was an unusually hot weekend in the valley too so the rest of the flowers didn’t last very long either. All the flowers looked pretty limp by Sunday afternoon. I thought maybe I did something wrong, but in my flower arranging class on Monday, Marianne also noted that she’s received some calls about her flowers wilting fast too. So it wasn’t just us, it’s just too darn hot these days.

The flower district is located in downtown Los Angeles on Wall Street, between 7th and 8th streets. I went down to the flower district before and while most of the wholesalers are in that warehouse looking structure, I’ve gotten flowers from just regular retail stores along the street as well.

On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday the hours are 6 am to noon for the public and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, they are open from 8 am to noon.

If anyone wants to go get some flowers (when I get back), let me know, I’d be happy to tag along.