Descanso Gardens

The Descanso Gardens are one of the beautiful cultured gardens in this area. It was originally the home of the publisher of The Los Angeles Daily News. He built a 22 room mansion that overlooked acres of oak trees. The property is now open to the public, usually for a fee, but on Labor Day, it was open for free! So, instead of unpacking and getting ready for school to start on Thursday, I took the boys to the gardens and met up with some friends.


Something about fish, frogs and turtles just fascinates little boys.


Pretty waterlilly


Posing with a Model A Ford, Michael, Hannah, Sammy and Adam

There was a Model A Ford exhibition going on next to the mansion. So fun to look at the old cars and see how improvements were slowly made. It took years to get workable windshield wipers!



Here's a pic of the main living room. Gorgeous! My camera doesn't do it justice, so I quit taking pictures and just enjoyed the ambiance.

There is a cute children's garden with a maze. They keep it trimmed so that kids can see over the top and all the kids loved seeing how quickly they could go through it.



What a beautiful place, and we weren't even there for the peak blooming season. We'll be going back again in the spring when it's really pretty.



Here's a funny clip of our friend Ben, playing "Swamp McDonald's" with the kids in the Japanese garden.