Superblooms subdued this season, but worth a trip
California’s wildflower season is in full swing, with vivid bursts of color springing up statewide.
“I was up in the Sierra Nevada foothills just a couple of weeks ago and it was gorgeous,” said Naomi Fraga, director of conservation programs at the California Botanical Garden. “Tons of wildflowers were coming out.”
Months of wet weather have benefited flowering plants, though displays this year are generally shaping up to be more subdued than last year’s spectacular superbloom. But Californians will still have plenty of opportunities to seek out beautiful blossoms this spring, experts say.
What makes for magnificent blooms
There isn’t an exact scientific definition for a “superbloom.” But the term does describe a real phenomenon, when huge swaths of annual wildflowers emerge in unison, particularly in the desert. “You have really big patches of color in an otherwise very sparsely vegetative landscape,” Fraga explained.
Blooms were so abundant last year that they were visible from space.
Flowering is only one step in the plant life cycle, which lasts just one growing season for annual plant species. That’s why many native plants have adapted to California’s fickle weather patterns by hiding out as seeds in the soil to avoid dry years.
“It’s when we get those atypically wet years where suddenly all those species emerge,” said Justin Valliere, a restoration ecologist at UC Davis.
The best wildflower displays come during good rainfall years that have been preceded by years of drought, as was the case last year. Seeds that have waited years, even decades in some cases, take their shot at flowering and making more seeds.
This is one reason wildflowers this spring may not be as dramatic as last year. But there are other factors to consider, too — especially competition from invasive
weeds.
“In lots of places it’s shaping up to be a very good weed year — or a bad year if you’re taking it from the perspective of native plant species,” Valliere said.
Why weeds get in the way of wildflowers
Callista Turner is an interpreter with Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, located in the western Mojave Desert. This year isn’t panning out to be a great poppy year, but there are still plenty of other wildflowers blooming at the state natural reserve, Turner said.
“We have hillsides that are just streaked with yellow goldfields,” Turner said. “We have cream cups and purple owl’s clover — all sorts of different kinds of wildflowers that are blooming.”
But blooms this year are facing more competition from invasive plant species. “The years where we get a lot of rain, those nonnatives really exploit that and they grow very aggressively and they crowd out the wildflowers, and the poppies as well,” Turner said.
Weeds churned out seeds following last year’s ample rainfall, priming them for proliferation this spring. In addition, invasive weeds in Southern California got a big head start because of early rains — like Tropical Storm Hilary last summer — which doesn’t bode well for native plant species, Valliere said.
“This doesn’t preclude there being some areas that have great displays of wildflowers this year,” Valliere said. “My guess is that for a lot of places, we’re not going to see massive carpets.”
Where to find wildflowers
This spring will still be a great time for people to go out and enjoy blossoms, the experts said.
Ryan Forbes, a California State Park interpreter who works at parks in the Bay Area, recommended Mount Tamalpais as a great place to visit. One reason is serpentine soil: many invasive grasses struggle with such nutrient-poor soil, but there are native wildflower species that are specially adapted to it.
Also, visitors can travel all the way from sea level up to mountain peaks. “There’s all these different environments that you can go through, which will showcase tons of different species of flowers and plants,” Forbes said.
While places like Anza-Borrego Desert State Park have passed peak bloom, there are still opportunities to enjoy blooms in Northern California and the Bay Area.
“If you haven’t gone out to see the wildflowers yet, you’re not out of time,” Forbes said.