Where: The Getty Museum Gardens, Los Angeles

Where will you find nature imitating art that represents nature? At The Getty Center in Los Angeles, where jacaranda trees and flowers bloom this month in vivid purple splendor; it's a color scheme planted to match the museum's prized painting of Vincent van Gogh's "Irises."

Take a walk: Inside the Getty Center with its lofty skylights the art is beautiful, but the view from the gardens — more than 800 feet above the city — is breathtaking ... in every direction. To the east are distant city landscapes; to the south, the cactus garden's prickly forms and silhouettes punctuate views of the South Bay and Palos Verdes Peninsula; to the west is the Pacific Ocean, and to the north the gardens blend into the hillsides where herds of mule deer roam and occasionally appear at quiet times of the day. Only one-quarter of the Getty's 24-acre hilltop site is taken up by buildings. The remaining land has been transformed by an astonishing array of plants, flowers, fragrant vines, shrubs, grasses and trees organized into gardens, terraces, courtyards and open patios where visitors can socialize or simply relax and take a break from the galleries. The Central Garden, designed by artist Robert Irwin, is an outdoor work of art, with metal tree sculptures entwined with foliage, and plants that change and blend colors year-round. Irwin has described it as "a sculpture in the form of a garden aspiring to be art." Another highlight is the desert garden, an arid zone on the circular south promontory, where plants common to Southern California, such as cactus and succulents, are laid out in a startling design.

The Getty Center employs 32 gardeners full-time to keep the gardens at their best. Visitors can even bring a picnic to certain locations.

Learn more: Guided tours of the Getty Center's landscaped gardens are at 11:30 a.m. and 12:30, 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. daily. Meet the docent outside at the bench under the sycamore trees near the front entrance of the museum. The tour lasts 45 minutes. Or take a self-guided tour.

Hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays and Sundays; 10 a.m.9 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. The center is at 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles. (310) 440 7300, www.getty.edu. Admission is free.

Reach Chris Oliver at coliver@honoluluadvertiser.com.