Friday, April 28, 2017

April Poppies!

After our winter of rain, we had a few weeks of spring weather. There were lots of comments about a #superbloom, so of course I had to visit the poppy reserve and see for myself. This was from about 2 weeks ago. It did not disappoint!

There were fields of orange
Lots of orange!
Poppies stay closed when it's overcast or windy, so early in the morning, they weren't as open. The fields were still pretty though.
A bit less bright, but still everywhere.
Poppies everywhere!
There were some areas where the yellow wild flowers were more prevalent:
Yellow fields on the west side of the park
Yellow and orange blending together
Up close, the color variations in the poppies are easier to see:
Yellow and orange.
Bi-colored and orange
There are many other flowers besides the California poppies, but they only really standout in close-ups!
Clover
White flowers
In addition to the plants, the desert wild life was out too:
From the friendly...

... to the not so friendly!

The super-bloom lived up to it's billing! It's already getting hot now (and windy), so I'm sure the flowers will be gone soon. The ones in my garden will stick around longer. But that's part of what makes the big fields of wild ones so special - the golden hills of California only stick around for a bit!












10 comments:

  1. Holy crap! That's a rattlesnake. That might keep me from enjoying the superbloom if I lived in California. Thanks for sharing your photos, I bet they were magnificent.

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    1. It is a rattlesnake! They're surprisingly common here. The poppies were great! Thanks for visiting.

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  2. Your poppy display is heavier than the one I saw, Renee. They're gorgeous en masse like that. While my 'White Linen' California poppies did reasonably well, I never got more than a handful of orange ones and, as it's windy and heating up here too, I expect that ship has sailed.

    Happy gardening!

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    1. Your white ones are pretty though. Did they come true from re-seeding? I want to try some not-orange ones in the garden for next year...

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  3. I missed our poppy bloom on the edges of the mountains, but your's probably outranks ours. I wonder if your yellow poppies mixed in are what we have, E. mexicana? Great trip.
    With that color, it looks like a Mojave Rattler...makes our Western Diamondback Rattler tame in comparison.

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    1. These yellow flowers were on the same plant as the orange ones, so I think not. But we do have E. mexicana here also. The rattler was remarkably calm, so maybe it wasn't a Mojave green...

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  4. I'm so glad you took the snake photo from far away. Yikes!

    The poppies are wonderful. Already here they are dried out, but their brief glory is still--glory.

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    1. What you can't see in the picture was that there was a while group of people - poor snake! The poppies didn't last long, but that's what makes them special! And the snakes are probably happy all the humans are gone again!

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  5. Wow! Just looking at your pictures makes my heart leap. How I would have loved to have seen the desert in bloom this year.

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    1. They are pretty, and I always think the same when I see your seas of bluebonnets. Thanks for visiting!

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