The Sweet Smell of Alfredo Hidalgo's Flower Stand

Every Sunday, from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., you can swing on by the Hidalgo Flowers stand at the and buy anything from daisies, dahlias, roses, or sweet smelling Casablanca lilies. Owner Alfredo Hidalgo has been setting up his lovely flower stand every Sunday, rain or shine, for the past eight years at the La Jolla Open Aire Market.

“I’ve been growing flowers for 33 years and 4 months at this time.  Every single year we look for new items to grow and we are always trying to improve our stand and make it better. However, my stand has not changed much over the years,” says Hidalgo. 

“Locals love to buy lots of beautiful, gorgeous flowers that we grow. We sell a little bit of everything. I’d have to say the bestsellers are the lilies. We also sell a lot of spider chrysanthemums, roses, lisianthus, sunflowers, gerbera daisies, snapdragons, and dahlias. People love to buy the Casablanca white lilies; they smell lovely. Every week we also have customers that come and pick up a bunch of roses, or lilies, dahlias, and others just come to pick up baby bouquets and some people love to just take home some flowers every week.”

Naomi Thomas, a repeat customer who returns to the stand every Sunday, stopped by to pick up her weekly armful of flowers and was able to shed some insight on her experiences at Hidalgo’s flower stand.

“I live in La Jolla and I come here every single week and I love Alfredo and I love his flowers even better. My favorite flowers are the concador lilies. I love the yellow ones and I buy them by the armloads because they are so wonderful. All the flowers are reasonably priced and extremely fragrant. This stand is the one of the first that you encounter and is one of the best and it is the place to go!”

Hidalgo is extremely appreciative of his loyal and local clientele, and added that “since we’ve been here we have expanded our customer base. We see new faces when tourists come in the summer but we have lots of returning customers whose lovely faces we see each Sunday. Over the years we gained more returning customers.”

So next Sunday, be sure to swing by the Hidalgo flower stand. The prices range from $2 to $22. You can grab one mixed bouquet for $7 or three for $20, one mini bouquet for $5 or three for $12, and a bundle of 10 roses for $8 or 25 roses for $15, and much more!