What to Know
- Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge
- The cherry blossoms of the Japanese Garden are beginning to peak, adding to the area's serene and painterly atmosphere
- Visiting the Japanese Garden is included with admission
Museum-goers often wonder what it might be like to step through a colorful canvas and enter the otherworldly realm of a painting.
Stepping inside a famous watercolor would surely provide the art-loving adventurer with an ethereal experience. And choosing to roam the curious corners found within a surrealist masterpiece? Such a trip might be akin to exploring a dizzying dreamscape.
But the truth, sad to say, is this: Entering a painting, from any genre or era, still isn't possible.
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Or is it?
Because there is a place, in La Cañada Flintridge, where fluttery flowers, verdant leaves, calm water, and a beautiful orange bridge come together in a composition that is so sublime that few photographs can truly capture the momentary magic.
It's the Japanese Garden inside Descanso Gardens, a spot that boasts both Akebono and Beni Hoshi cherry blossoms. The flowering fruit trees are moving in the direction of their pretty peak, and when they do, a real-life painting will shimmer into vivacious view, if only for a limited time.
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That view, like a cherry blossom's all-too-brief bloom period, will be short, so you'll want to visit the garden in the days leading up to Easter, and perhaps just after.
Another treat is in store for Descanso Garden visitors over the second week of April 2023: Thousands of tulips, all planted in January, are also peaking.
The garden team recommends calling upon the Promenade area, where the vibrant flowers are located, before mid-April to see the spectacular display.
