PLANT CURATOR
botanical artistry | imagery | creativity
  • Art & Design
  • Photography
  • Culture
  • Places
  • Free Art
  • Books
Home » Events » The ultimate Californian deserts in bloom photographic road trip

The ultimate Californian deserts in bloom photographic road trip

March 5, 2014|Events, Photography, Top

Plant Curator often daydreams about spending a few months at this time of year doing a photographic tour of the Californian desert wildflower regions. The ultimate plant lovers road trip would involve going south to north, from desert hotspot to desert hotspot, catching like dominos, the peak blooms in each place. In reality it’s not that latitudinally predictable, as variable rainfall and altitude means variable blooming times. Luckily, there are some resources to help. Firstly, there is Desert USA, a great website that tells you exactly what is blooming and where. Altruistic local people post updates and photos of flower sightings to the website as and when they see them, enabling us to plan our trips accordingly to make the most of the flowers on show. Secondly, to help the road trip even more, Plant Curator found this really useful blooming times timeline (annotated by PC below)  by the U.S Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management, that gives you a good idea of the ‘usual flowering times’ for each region. By using the two resources together, plans can be made and disappointments avoided. If you follow these estimated times you will end up doing more of a zig-zag than a unidirectional trip. All recommended locations have been plotted on map below.

Californian wildflower blooming times

Below we list our top desert picks. Some Plant Curator has been privileged enough to see, others it just fantasises about repeatedly.

1. Finding the Desert Lily

This is not your ordinary lily this is the Desert Lily. It shimmers and sparkles silver and white in the desert sun and it is oddly stripey with jaggedy leaves. Rare enough that you will need to look for a while to find it  (Plant Curator took 3 days), but common enough that you won’t go totally crazy in the heat. Hesperocallis undulata can be found in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts of southeastern California and Plant Curator once saw a few of them in Anza-borrego State Park (see 2 below). This is special plant to see wild.

Desert Lily

Image Copyright AllPosters.co.uk

2. Hiking the Anza-borrego state park canyons

Anza-Borrego is California’s largest state park, 25 by 50 miles in size and ringed by mountains. It is located within the Colorado Desert. It is also a World Biosphere Reserve and most importantly home to some amazing plants. The quintessential Anza-borrego shot of mountain to mountain wildflower blooms is shown below. Made up in part by the beautiful Sand Verbena (Abronia villosa) and Dune Evening Primrose (Oenotheera deltoides).

adam-jones-flowers-growing-on-desert-anza-borrego-desert-state-park-california-usa

Image Copyright AllPosters.co.uk

3. Photographing Californian poppies in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve

This is a famous and well photographed wildflower hotspot where you will see swarms and swarms of Californian poppy or Eschscholzia californica, the state flower of California.  The timeline says we should head here around April time and if the sun is shining expect to see a golden glow to beat all glows.

Antelope valley Poppy reserveImage Copyright Californian department of Parks and Recreation. See Website

4. Ocotillos, ocotillos flaming red everywhere

You’ll often see these plants in desert garden landscaping. They have an architectural quality that offsets a house quite well. Viewing them wild in the desert when not in flower is also eye-catching. But seeing the Ocotillo or Fouquieria splendens in full bloom is the best. Indigenous to the Sonoran Desert with a range throughout the south west USA this woody, thorny, multi wand-like stemmed plant produces dense tubular bright red flowers that cluster at the top of each stem like flaming torches. Magnificent.

Ocotillos in the desert

5. Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) are a little surreal and extremely wondrous. Casting your eye across a landscape of them you feel transported to another vegetative world. In addition to these and all the other great species, there is the Cholla Cactus Garden which contains dense clusters of the aforementioned plant. Another hypnagogic sight. So much to see all year round, it is hard to imagine it any better – but then it blooms. Last year went on record as one of the greatest years for flowering, with blooming Joshua Trees in great abundance over most of its range. Plant Curator wonders how it will do this year.

joshuatree3

Send an email if you would like to join Plant Curator for its now planned 2015 Californian Wildflower Blooming Road Trip!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Share
March 12, 2015 R L F Matthias

Related Posts

  • Regent’s Canal to Mile End Park to Tower Hamlets Cemetery
    Regent’s Canal to Mile End Park to Tower Hamlets CemeteryJune 29, 2015
  • Botanical art show in Chelsea
    Botanical art show in ChelseaMay 28, 2015
  • Vegetal and the city
    Vegetal and the cityApril 22, 2015

Popular Posts

  • 88 free vintage medicinal plant illlustrations
    88 free vintage medicinal plant illlustrationsApril 21, 2014
  • Species list for La Primavera anyone?
    Species list for La Primavera anyone?March 23, 2014
  • Species list for Millais’ Ophelia anyone?
    Species list for Millais’ Ophelia anyone?April 15, 2014
← Visiting Deep Forest with Emily Carr
Flower collages of Ted Feighan aka Monster Rally →

One Response to The ultimate Californian deserts in bloom photographic road trip

  • Bluebugle March 6, 2014

    It’s been raining in Palm Springs this week so think more flowers will be coming… really like to take 3 months off too just to do this.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on EmailFollow Us on rss

Popular Posts

  • 88 free vintage medicinal plant illlustrations
    88 free vintage medicinal plan... April 21, 2014
  • Species list for Millais’ Ophelia anyone?
    Species list for Millais’... April 15, 2014
  • Species list for La Primavera anyone?
    Species list for La Primavera ... March 23, 2014
  • Talking vegetable cartoons of Berger & Wyse
    Talking vegetable cartoons of ... April 1, 2014
  • Botticelli’s flowers to Valentino’s dresses via Celia Birtwell
    Botticelli’s flowers to ... January 19, 2015
  • Flower collages of Ted Feighan aka Monster Rally
    Flower collages of Ted Feighan... March 6, 2014
  • The ultimate Californian deserts in bloom photographic road trip
    The ultimate Californian deser... March 5, 2014
  • The Dave Hill effect
    The Dave Hill effect February 9, 2014
  • Fake flowers tell the truth
    Fake flowers tell the truth February 7, 2014
  • Interview with Coral Guest: Flower Painter
    Interview with Coral Guest: Fl... January 14, 2015
  • Creatives with Plants
    Creatives with Plants December 16, 2014
  • Plant in the Room: Magnolia
    Plant in the Room: Magnolia November 24, 2014
  • Plant in the room: Narcissus
    Plant in the room: Narcissus November 11, 2014
  • What species is Monet’s Bodmer Oak?
    What species is Monet’s ... September 23, 2014
  • The Top 5 Identification Guides for UK Wild Plant Photographers
    The Top 5 Identification Guide... July 14, 2014

About

Plant Curator selectively collects creations to build a digital athenaeum of plant beauty and application in the arts. Designers that work in nature or plant-related fields will find inspiration for design and content here. In this way we help botanical creatives learn from other botanical creatives.
Read More

Area of interest

Links

  • Submit to Plant Curator
  • Directory

Email

Your message was successfully sent. Thank You!

© 2017 plantcurator.com. All Rights Reserved
%d bloggers like this: