The Bloom Is On
Everything’s coming up roses in Exposition Park. Of course, this isn’t news to anyone who’s walked through the park in the last 73 years. To the rest of Southern California, however, the 7-acre Exposition Park Rose Garden, surrounded by one of the most historic neighborhoods in downtown L.A., is one of the city’s best-kept secrets.
Giving the park, which lies just south of the USC campus, some well-deserved attention is the first Blooming of the Roses Festival, debuting today with an opening ceremony at 1 p.m. It will be followed by a free tour of the garden, sponsored by the Natural History Museum and open to all ages.
The following three days will be packed with history and horticulture. Tours of the historic neighborhood (one of Los Angeles’ original suburbs), craft workshops, rose talks and scavenger hunts for kids are planned, culminating in a swarm of free activities on Sunday.
The festival is a cooperative effort between the city of L.A. Recreation and Parks Department and the Figueroa Corridor Partnership Business Improvement District, along with the Natural History Museum, the California Science Center and the California African American Museum, with museum staffs leading most of the activities.
The parks department has maintained the rose garden for almost three-quarters of a century. Mark Mariscal, superintendent of the Griffith-Metro region of the Department of Recreation and Parks, says the park “has always had its influence in L.A.--it’s been one of the few inner-city parks that have a good amount of open space.”
The 160-acre park, partly owned by the state, was once known as an agricultural district just beyond the city’s boundary--which until the late 1800s was at Figueroa Street and Exposition Boulevard. The city annexed the property, Mariscal says, and in 1910 named it Exposition Park. Construction began soon after on the Natural History Museum.
In 1921, a section that enjoyed a lively past as a horse-racing track was developed into a sunken garden. Six years later, the Department of Recreation and Parks transformed the site into the rose garden, which remains intact today.
“We have about 7,000 roses professionally displayed, in approximately 140 garden beds,” Mariscal says proudly. “What we’re trying to highlight [at the festival] is that we have this beautiful, 7-acre urban rose garden in the heart of Los Angeles that is an oasis that people forget about.”
For years the rose garden was a hub of horticultural classes, but budget cuts put an end to those. In recent years, Mariscal says, revitalization efforts have been focused not only on Exposition Park but also on the Figueroa Corridor and the surrounding community.
“We believe this rose garden and the entire grounds of Exposition Park is a gem,” Mariscal says. “The beauty lies in the old architecture, in the long-term history of Los Angeles and what it has to offer.”
Last year, a ceremony to celebrate the blooming season planted the seed for this year’s festival. The intent of last year’s event, Mariscal says, was to remind people who had visited the garden or the science and history museums as kids that the place still existed. So much interest sprouted that new music programs were implemented and are expected to take root as monthly events. And the little spring ceremony has evolved into the Blooming of the Roses Festival.
On Friday, free docent-led tours of the rose garden begin at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. On both Saturday and Sunday, craft projects will be offered in the Natural History Museum’s Discovery Center and are included in the price of museum admission ($8; students and seniors, $5.50; ages 5-12, $2).
On Saturday only, the Natural History Museum offers events geared to specific ages at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Hop to It!, for ages 3-4, begins with a scavenger hunt and craft project. Preregistration is required, and the fee is $30 for an adult/child pair.
No adults are allowed at the programs for older children. Flower Power, for ages 5-6, includes visits to the Butterfly Pavilion and rose garden, and Spring’s the Thing, for ages 7-8, offers the chance to meet animals and go on a scavenger hunt in the garden. The workshops are $25 per child; reservations are required.
From 2-4 p.m. on Saturday, Clair Martin, rose expert and curator for the rose garden at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, will lead a walk and lecture geared to adults through the Exposition Park Rose Garden. No reservations are required; the cost is $7.
On Sunday, from 11 a.m.-4 p.m., a tour of historic University Park and the Figueroa Corridor includes the rose garden, interiors of Victorian homes and exteriors of architecturally significant buildings. Among the ornate structures built in the early 1920s in University Park are the Automobile Club of Southern California and the St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church; the L.A. Memorial Coliseum is the most prominent historical structure in Exposition Park ($15 for all ages).
Also on Sunday, four free, kid-oriented workshops are planned from 1-4 p.m., including one led by the California African American Museum in the rose garden. In the Collage-Quilt Workshop, kids will construct a Dresden block quilt, like the ones used to send messages to runaway slaves during the time of the Underground Railroad.
Also, from noon-4 p.m., free jazz music programs will be presented in the garden.
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* Blooming of the Roses Festival, today, 1-1:30 p.m.; Friday 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Exposition Park, Figueroa Street and Exposition Boulevard in Los Angeles. A complete schedule is on the Web site: https://www.nhm.org/calendar. Information: (213) 763-3534.
