#10: Wholesale Flower Market in Downtown

When my friend Hillary got engaged, she got a fairly large, good quality diamond for only $800. Say whaaa?? All thanks to the Downtown jewelry district, a place where wholesale jewelers display their diamonds and other gems for fancier retailers to pick up, mark up, and sell for 10 times (or more) the wholesale price. There are several sections of the Wholesale District, and the best part is that they are all open to the public! As long as you can wade through the foot traffic, (and successfully navigate AWAY from Skid Row) you too can buy diamonds, or clothes (from the fashion/garment district) or rugs and fabric (from the textile district), or seafood (from the warehouse district), or toys (from what else, the toy district), or, for the case of this post, FLOWERS from the flower district, all at wholesale prices!

I have always wanted to go to the flower district, but it's just one of those things you never really "get around" to doing. For one, it is only open till noon on Saturdays (and closed Sundays) so it's something you have to plan for, wake up for in time, and get there before all the "good" flowers are gone. I knew that if I didn't put this on my list, I would probably never go, for one reason or another. But quite unexpectedly, I had a VERY good reason to go last weekend.

2011 is a big year in my family, mostly because it's the year that I turn 25 (hah hah) but also because both of my parents turned 60 this year. And seeing as this was the first "milestone" birthday for them where my brother, David, and I weren't starving and selfish college students, we decided that in addition to getting them presents, we (including our significant others) would each get them 60 of something.

After a few days of having NO idea what to get my mom (my dad was easy, I got him 60 Boeing airplane paper clips) I decided to try to get my mom 60 flowers. She has always loved flowers, as every woman does, so I thought it would be neat to get her 60 different stems. And where better to get them than the wholesale flower district in downtown!?

So, on the Saturday morning in April when Ronny and I were going to drive to my parent's house, we got up at 7:00AM (the horror!) and drove into downtown. It was a lovely morning with blue skies and no traffic, and we were able to easily find metered parking for $3 for an hour.. unfortunately, in my worldview that's reasonable.

Ironically enough, it's worth noting that the flower district is on Wall Street. In New York, it's high-powered fraud machines who brought down the world economy, but in Los Angeles, it's pretty flowers! I'll take LA over NY any day for that reason alone.

After paying the $1 entrance fee, we entered the market, which is really a large warehouse filled with dozens of booths for each of the local growers. Flowers were EVERYWHERE. We decided to do a lap around all the booths, to see what our options were. I very quickly realized that I would not be able to get 60 different types of flowers for my mom, so instead decided to get her as many different bunches as I could. I hemmed and hawed a lot, and I'm sure I REALLY tried Ronny's patience, but after our first lap, I had decided on which flowers I wanted to buy my mom.

I got her:
-Irises
-White snapdragons
-Red gladiolas
-Mini sunflowers
-Pink tulips
-White calla lilies
-Peach roses
-Greens

For a total of 63 stems plus greens, we paid just over $40. That's about the price of a dozen roses with baby's breath from a florist! The most expensive bunch we bought was the 2 dozen peach roses for, wait for it... $11. All the other bunches cost between $3-$5, and I think the dozen tulips were $8.

But most importantly, my mom was absolutely THRILLED with her gift. We bought enough flowers to make her 5 arrangements, which she then spread out around the house, and even took one into work.

I was very happy with the whole flower district experience, and definitely want to go back again. I probably won't drag Ronny the next time, because even though he was such a trooper and carried all the flowers for me as I pranced around the warehouse, I could tell he just really, really wanted to go back to sleep. Next time I will bring a wagon and let Ronny sleep!

From the outside

Inside the flower market warehouse


Me with all the bunches we bought. I must say, this is not a very representative picture because Ronny carried them the WHOLE time, and I only held them for the photo-op

The finished arrangements

Oh, and just in case you guys were curious, here's what everyone else brought 60 of:
David brought them each iPods with the top 60 songs from 1969, the year they graduated high school
My brother's girlfriend Stephanie brought my dad 60 golf tees (just enough for one round, in his words) and my mom a jar of 60 different buttons for crafting
Ronny, besides putting in pretty much ALL the effort for my mom's flowers, also brought my dad 60 mini Snickers bars