Descanso Rose Festival: Reserve Now

Book your spot for the spectacular La Cañada Flintridge petal show.

If roses are going to be present at an event we're attending, very often there's some sort of reservation or ticket needed or perhaps an invitation requiring an RSVP.

Think of ballroom-based dinners, the kind with fancy rose-laden centerpieces, and think of heartly happenings, too, like weddings.

All that said, we don't typically believe that a public garden requires a reservation, because usually gardens do not. Rather, we just visit when we're in the mood to see some marvelous blossoms at their pretty peak.

Rose Festival 2017, however, is a bit unique. The popular Descanso Gardens celebration is so popular that A) we had to type "popular" twice and B) the historical property is now asking interested attendees to select a timed entry ahead of time.

This isn't too new at the La Cañada Flintridge oaks-and-everything destination, for the popular March Cherry Blossom Festival also went the timed-entry, reservations-ahead-of-time route.

There we go again with "popular" but, truly, when it comes to cherry blossoms and roses, flower fans pop up in bloom-seeking droves. Reservations, and timed entries, just keep it smoother, and less packed, giving guests a better experience.

The dates fall on just about the rosiest weekend on the calendar, Saturday, May 20 and Sunday, May 21. Roses, at least in popular culture, are painted as a bit persnickety when it comes to showing their showiest hues, but the middle of May, at least 'round this region, can be counted on to deliver, and wow, we mean "how," on the rose-showy front.

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In short: If you want to see roses at their fragrant, color-bright best, neither hemming nor hawing is recommended.

Here's where you make your reservations. As for other happenings during the Descanso Gardens weekend, beyond the admiring of the storied buds? A "Human Vase" Living Art presentation, cello tunes, and "floral art activities" will keep springtime revelers up to their ankles, proverbially, in petals.

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