Super Blooms Are Everywhere

Upper Back Bay in Newport Beach is awash in yellow.

Super blooms are everywhere! The southern California hills, valleys and deserts are filled to the brim with beautiful flowers dotting the landscape. The eyes can’t help but drink-in the spectacular colors wherever the wildflowers, desert native plants and even weeds have decided to open their blooms. Bright yellows! Deep oranges! Delicious pinks! Luscious whites! Pretty purples! Spring has sprung, exposing her belly-full of magic, where flowers entice and enchant the insect world to a colorful mating dance with petals and pollen. As a company that designs with flowering plants, Plantscapers is excited to see local landscapes fill up with blooms.

Anja super bloom
Anza-Borrego State Park gives a show of yellow flowers. Photo by Anja Rex

WHAT IS A SUPER BLOOM?

This year has been a booty year for flowers with over 6.5 inches of rainfall from December to February, awakening the seeds. After the rains, came 2 weeks of warm temperatures which set in motion the soaked seeds to break through the earth, reach for the sky and explode into a gathering of super blooms. Five years of drought have made these flowers eager to find the sunshine. Hence, a super bloom!

You can view the super blooms in your own local area. California poppies, with their bright orange blooms are hard to miss in neighborhood gardens, vacant lots and even off freeway ramps.

Our rolling hills in Irvine and Laguna Canyon that have been long-term brown, are now awash with green and dotted with colors. The Back Bay in Newport Beach has a swath of yellows from black mustard flowers to bush sunflower and other tiny pink, purple and white flowers covering the cliffs.

purple flowers petey diamond lake
Petey enjoys a romp through the wildflowers in Escondido. Photo by Anja Rex

Look out for daisies, lupines, sages, lilies popping up everywhere. Even the humble dandelion, thistle and clover chastised as weeds are setting forth their yellow, purple and white flowers.

All of southern California is celebrating its bounty of blooms as wildflowers spring up in a variety of landscapes such as Antelope Valley, Death Valley, and Joshua Tree. Last year carpets of flowers blanketed Death Valley. But it’s Anza-Borrego’s turn, and a show of colors has been popping up across the 1,000 square miles in Anza-Borrego State Park.

IT’S TIME TO CHECK OUT THE WILDFLOWERS!

Google has even conveniently mapped out southern California wildflowers to visit.

Death Valley
Lower elevations: February through mid- April
Higher elevations: mid-April through May
Mountain slopes: May through July

Flowers: Desert gold, phacelia, golden evening primrose, gravel ghost, Bigelow monkey flower and desert five-spot

Joshua Tree National Park
Higher elevations: March through April

cholla and lupine
Purple lupine surround a cholla in Anza-Borrego desert.

Flowers: Poppies, desert dandelions and Canterbury bells now, and later mallows, phacelia and cactus, including beavertail and Mojave mound cactus.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
Throughout March and Early April

Flowers: Sand verbenia, desert lilies, ocotillo, varieties of primrose and cactus, including fishhook and beavertail.

Diamond Valley Lake
The seasonal wildflower trail open until mid-May.

Flowers: Blooming now are poppies, lupines, brittle bush, Canterbury bells and California goldfields. Coming up are owl’s clover, phacelia, chia, baby blue eyes and Indian paintbrush.

Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological
March into April

Flowers: One of the best examples of native bunchgrass prairie habitats located in the state. Early bloomers include chocolate lilies, shooting stars and ground pinks, with poppies and lupines expected to bloom soon and later-blooming mariposa lilies.

Laguna Coast Wilderness Park
Mid-March through early May

diamond valley lake super bloom anja
California poppies bring their bright orange color to Diamond Valley Lake trails. Photo by Anja Rex

Flowers: Sporadic bloom, mostly poppies, now and later owl’s clover, lupine, monkey flowers and Indian paintbrush.

Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy
March through early summer

Flowers: Poppies, California buckwheat, arroyo lupine, caterpillar phacelia, mariposa lily, fiddleneck and California bush sunflower.

Theodore Payne Foundation
April through May or longer

Flowers: Wild Flower Hill features wild buckwheat and black sage shrubs in bloom and flowers, including blue dicks and scarlet larkspur.

Santiago Oaks Regional Park
March and April

Flowers: Early in the season, the highest concentration of flowers is along the interior slopes, such as Coachwhip Trail and Weir Canyon Loop. They include California poppy, arroyo lupine, fiddleneck, Indian paintbrush, blue-eyed grass, California wishbone and bush sunflower.

Oak Glen Preserve
Lower elevation, Hummingbird Hill March through April
Higher elevation, Monet’s Palatte end of April through June

Flowers: The preserve’s Monet’s Palette garden opened in 2016, planted in 22 varieties of native wildflowers that mimic the bands of color in the French Impressionism artist’s garden. Nearby Hummingbird Hill features penstemons, currants and other species that attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Poppies, woolly-leaved ceanothus are blooming now at the conservancy, with black and white sage later this month.

Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument
March through April and sometimes into May

Flowers: Primrose, desert lavender, lupines, chuparosa, budding now Fremont pincushion, with more wildflowers and cactus blooming toward the end of March, including hedgehog and beavertail cactus.

TOP PHOTO: Upper Back Bay, Newport Beach, California

 

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Irvine, CA 92614
Phone: (949) 486-1495
Toll-Free: 800-PLANT13
Fax: (949) 486-1499

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