There are things to do in LA besides eat, and I don’t mean to neglect another very special part of California life.  With Mother Nature lavishly producing twelve months of warm weather a year, glorious blooming plants and flowers are bursting out of every possible green space.  There are lots of shops that are intriguing hybrids of nurseries, florists, and home décor items, such as Rolling Greens, and we never leave without an armload of plants, candles, potted bamboo and unusual containers.  Succulents are perfect for the California climate, and we found some beautiful examples at Rolling Greens:

Succulents at Rolling Greens

If you can’t find a cake plate here, it doesn’t exist.

Left coast floral arrangements are highly professional and lush, as you can see from these two examples from the Peninsula Hotel:

Beautiful Flowers at the Peninsula Hotel

You can walk into almost any flower shop (these photos are from Moe’s), and find varieties and volume that boggle the flower-lover’s mind:

Flowers at Moe’s

Finally, and this has nothing to do with food, flowers or formalities, we went to the coolest nail salon (again, Californians are ahead of the curve on nails), and I had to take a few photos because it was so fun and original.  Olive and June in Beverly Hills, which will be opening in other locations around the country, has a WALL of polishes to choose from, and a cool pink vibe that makes you want to sit back and zone out while getting artistic manicures of multiple colors and designs.  (Did you know there is a thing called a party nail, where one fingernail is polished in a totally different color from all the rest?)  It looks great, and is just the kind of little twist you have to appreciate.  If you’re in LA, you should give it a try – and my opinion was validated by no less an authority than Vogue magazine, where I found Olive and June featured in the September issue I read on the plane on the way back to Washington!

Olive & June