Super bloom 2024? California wildflower blooms are shaping up to be spectacular:-It has rained a lot, flooded, and mudslided in the West for months. Now the rainbow comes: flowers in shades of red, blue, purple, and gold cover miles and miles of wild land. Last year, the colors were so bright that they could be seen from space.
A lot of people are going to the show because spring is coming and the flowers are moving from south to north.
Super bloom 2024? California wildflower blooms are shaping up to be spectacular
In the West, which is usually dry, wildflowers look their most beautiful after a rainy winter. It rained a lot last year, too, so this year’s bloom might be even better. This is what people sometimes call a “superbloom.”
“It looks like it will be a good bloom year,” said Dan McCamish, who is in charge of natural resources for the Colorado Desert District of the California State Parks.
McCamish said that it’s likely that this will be a big year for desert flowers, but it’s hard to be sure.
He has been adding up how much rain has fallen over the last 11 years. Three of them, 2016/2017, 2019/2020, and 2023/2024, have already had much more rain than usual.
“In the last two years, when it rained so much more than usual, we had an amazing bloom, with carpets of flowers,” he said.
There is already growth in some parts of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The park has made a digital map that people can use.
“We are just beginning the winter flower season, and I think it will last until the beginning of April,” he said.
The California State Parks say that lupine, coreopsis, desert sunflowers, evening or brown-eyed primroses, desert bells, desert poppies, and desert lilies could all be in bloom.
This happens all over the West, in Arizona, New Mexico, and all the way up and down California. Death Valley, the Carrizo Plain, and Antelope Valley are some of the biggest areas, though. They are in the southern part of the state. THE National Park Service said last month that Death Valley would have a good bloom, but not a “superbloom.”
If it didn’t rain much in the past year, some places might not grow.
The places where superblooms grow are usually dry places where plants are ready to take advantage of when it rains and the land becomes lush and healthy. If things stay dry, the seeds don’t germinate because they are dormant. If it rains a lot and the soil warms up, they bloom and spread their seeds in a beautiful show. But when it gets hot and dry in the summer, they die quickly because the soil is no longer suitable for them.
The blooms usually start around the middle of March and last until May or June. The California Department of Parks and Recreation has an online page that tells you what’s blooming and where to find the best watching spots.
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Don’t doom the bloom
To protect the precious lands where the flowers grow, it’s important to stay on the trails, not step on the plants, and only take pictures. Picking the flowers is not only illegal, but it also stops the seeds from germinating and making more flowers.
He said, “We say, ‘Don’t Doom the Bloom.'” “These plants and ecosystems are very fragile.”
When people go to a place with lots of flowers, they often block the roads and leave their cars to take pictures, which means they walk into fields and crush the plants they came to see.
People have sometimes caused so much damage to fragile wildlands that hiking trails and places with especially strong blooms had to be closed off by the government. Even fines have been given, and people who are hurting areas have been warned with arrest.
Park officials warn that many of the places where the blooms are happening are far away, even when the parks are open. There may or may not be cell service, and GPS may not work. When it does, it might be on dirt roads that only cars with four-wheel drive can handle.
McCamish said that tourists must help protect the plants so that they can live and bloom again in the future.
“These plants and ecosystems are very fragile,” he said. “Be careful where you step, and try not to step on the flowers and plants.”