Union Station is known for the gardens and courtyards close to its main, Art Deco building, but this little gem sits on the far east side of the property, behind the Metro building. This sunken hideaway has gardens, benches, fountains, and waterfalls.

Biddy Mason Park is a quiet little courtyard Downtown named for a former slave who became a prominent figure and one of the first black landowners in 19th century Los Angeles. The park is lined with a black concrete art wall designed by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville.

M2A Architects designed the mind-bending park in front of the Medallion rental building in the Old Bank District.

It’s true, there's nearly an acre of public park and garden up on the third level of Disney Hall—take the stairs up from the street near First and Grand. The Blue Ribbon Garden is also where the Patina restaurant below grows a lot of its ingredients.

After a fire in the seventies, Iranian immigrant Amir Dialameh took it upon himself to replant a hillside in Griffith Park—today it's nearly 5 acres of “pine and jacaranda trees along with rose bushes, geraniums, oleander, and yucca.”

Built as a home for Virginia and Harry Robinson of the Robinsons department store chain, this 1911 estate is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The gardens are open to the public by appointment (and for a fee).

The Japanese Garden is six and a half acres “fashioned after ‘stroll gardens’ constructed during the 18th and 19th centuries for Japanese Feudal lords,” its website notes.

Adjacent to the futuristic-looking Donald J. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, the garden was intended to show that reclaimed water could be used for lots of things, even a delicate-looking Japanese garden.

This spot in Cypress Park originally opened in the 1950s as Lawry’s California Center, a showcase for Lawry’s seasoning and condiments. It’s filled with pepper trees, roses, and Mission architecture.

One of the more unexpected sites in LA is the charming, rocky garden at the LAPD’s police academy, tucked in Elysian Park by Dodger Stadium.

This Runyon Canyon-adjacent site is perhaps most popularly known as the site of the Freddy in Troop Beverly Hills. The house was designed in the early 1900s by Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey, and is surrounded by several gardens (including a community garden) in various states of upkeep.

Tucked in Montecito Heights, Debs Park has a lake, tons of trails, and lots of spots to picnic (plus barbecues). It also has an Audubon Center so you can learn about all the birds that hang around the area.

Busby Berkeley's old mansion in West Adams is now home to the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. There, they've created meditation gardens and a labyrinth (“Walking a labyrinth in modern times is a great way to bring peace and relaxation to our minds”). You can take a guided tour on select days of the week (sign-up is required but there is no fee— they will take donations though).

While the Self-Realization Fellowship's Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades is better known, locals swear by the peaceful gardens at their Mt. Washington headquarters, which was built in the late 1800s as the Mt. Washington Inn. There is no cost to visti the grounds.

Caltrans owns this property—it was originally planning to do construction staging here for 710 Freeway work—but it's been turned into Pasadena's only dedicated public garden. It has an app too for identifying all its plants.

Artist Robert Wilson created this mandala off the hiking path at Runyon in 2008. According to the directions on the mandala’s Facebook page, hikers can find it “at the end of N. Fuller Ave, North of Franklin Ave and Hillside Ave, go up into the park and don’t take the hairpin turn, go up the path less traveled.”

This seven-acre botanical garden at UCLA is used as a teaching and research lab and as “a long-term repository for unusual plants, a refugium for biodiversity.” The school offers guided tours once a month, or you can go on your own. The garden is open seven days a week, and there is no admission charge.

La Casita del Arroyo was built during the Great Depression using lumber from the 1932 Olympics bicycle track and boulders from the Arroyo Seco, with design by famed architect Myron Hunt. Today, it’s got a water demonstration garden and butterfly sanctuary.

Tucked by the stables at Pierce College is the Old Trapper's Lodge. It was built by a man named John Ehn in the 1940s as part of his western-themed motel (called the Old Trapper's Lodge). Today it’s a landmarked collection of weird Old West art surrounded by trees and trails.

This little, 1.3-acre garden on the CSU Long Beach campus was designed by Edward R. Lovell and opened in 1981 as “a hybrid art form that combines typical elements of Japanese garden design within the context of its Southern California location.”