California deserts will soon burst with wildflowers

A recipe of rain and warmth will turn austere fields in the Borrego Valley, Joshua Tree, Lancaster, Mojave and Death Valley into wildflower paradises with brilliant colors.

Map of rain for the first 14 days of February 2010.

Benoit LeBourgeois
Los Angeles Times

The valleys and hillsides of the Southern California deserts have been preparing all winter for their close-up. Silent and forlorn, often harsh and austere, they're ready to shed their mantle of earth tones and dress themselves in wildflowers, thanks to the rain storms and subsequent warm days. Here's a look at what's unfolding in some of Southern California's best natural settings.

If you go, these five parks regularly update wildflower reports on their websites during viewing season. They also post activity calendars with details on ranger and docent programs. Desert USA keeps track of conditions throughout the Southwest deserts.

Anza-Borrego

Its lower desert elevation gives Anza-Borrego Desert State Park an early start on the wildflower viewing season. A decent winter rainfall nourished the ground sufficiently to help the seeds to germinate.

"It should be crazy great," says Michael Rodriques, the park's interpretive specialist. He predicts annuals will be at their peak until mid-March, with "hundreds of thousands of acres" of desert sunflower, sand verbena and dune evening primrose around the Borrego Valley.

Brittlebush and other perennial shrubs will add a colorful note in rocky areas. The flattened pads of the beavertail cactus and the spindly stems of the ocotillo also are ready to burst.

"It will be absolutely gorgeous," Rodriques says. "The aroma, you'll never forget."

Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree National Park hedges its botanical bets with two ecological zones, making a staggered wildflower bloom possible. "Portions of the park have received up to 10 inches of rain since December," says Joe Zarki, chief of interpretation. The bounty has stimulated early blooms in the lower eastern half of the park, where the whitish-yellow flowers of the small forget-me-nots compete for attention with chuparosa, a shrub covered with red tubular-shaped blossoms, and carpets of chia, a mint-family relative that Zarki describes as "weird-looking with spiky dark purple flower heads."

In the higher Mojave desert, the park's namesake tree (actually not a tree but a member of the yucca genus) has just started to bud. "Joshua trees don't necessarily track with other wildflowers," Zarki says. He expects wooly daisies, primroses and mariposa lilies as well as cacti to bloom in mid- to late March, with or without the Joshua trees.

Poppy Reserve

Milt Stark, vice president of the Poppy Reserve Mojave Desert Interpretive Assn., hesitates to quantify this year's seasonal display at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in Lancaster. "Predicting wild flowers is very difficult," he says, recalling that "last year looked great (in late winter), but it wasn't."

It may not be until mid-April that gargantuan fields of orange poppies will blanket the park's rolling hills, with patches of blue lupine and purple owl's clover making an appearance in riparian areas. The delay works out well for the preserve, which will be closed to vehicles (visitors may hike in) until March 1 because of state budget cuts. (The visitor center will not be open until the middle of the month.) The nearby Arthur B. Ripley Desert Woodland State Park is open. Expect to find California buckwheat, blue sage and other annuals among Joshua and some rare juniper trees.

Mojave

More optimism at the Mojave National Preserve. "We have a biologist who lives in the Granite Mountains. He believes there will be very good blooms at lower elevations," says Linda Slater, the park's chief of interpretation. In March, she expects evening primrose and sand verbena in the vicinity of the Kelso Dunes, desert marigold and Canterbury bell along Kelbaker Road and patches of beavertail cactus and Mojave Mound elsewhere in the vast park.

"If we get another rain," Slater says, "the flower bloom will continue at higher elevations like the Mid Hills," where globe mallow will paint the hillsides orange. The Joshua tree woodland on Cima Dome might sport creamy white blossoms, but Slater notes they do not bloom every year.

Death Valley

Ranger Alan Van Valkenburg expects that by mid-March the tiny white sprouts he sees on the floor of Death Valley National Park will become the season's first buds, ushering in a peak bloom later in the month. He says that near Furnace Creek the abundant yellow desert gold will turn the desert into, well, gold.

The purple notch-leaf phacelia will add a colorful counterpoint, one best enjoyed from a distance. "It's a plant that's very beautiful, but don't touch it," Van Valkenburg says. "It can produce a rash much like poison oak."

By the end of April, Van Valkenburg says temperatures will be too hot for most plants.

When the valley floor sizzles and wildflowers withdraw for the year, others come to life elsewhere. "If things work out just right, the bloom might be getting to peak in higher elevations like Emigrant Canyon, Scotty's Castle and Greenwater Valley," Van Valkenburg says.

Wildflower reserve concerned about proposed racetrack

Each year, thousands of people behold the state flower at the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve. A proposed motor sports park nearby has environmentalists, visitors, residents and parks officials nervous.

During peak seasons, the desert landscape beyond Lancaster turns into a lush welcome mat. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times / April 1, 2009)

By Ann M. Simmons
Los Angeles Times

During peak seasons, the hardened landscape in the desert beyond Lancaster turns into a golden welcome mat for the thousands who come to see the poppy fields.

It's a dizzying spectacle that the state estimates draws upward of 100,000 visitors a year to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve. There's a trail, an interpretive center and not much else -- except the sensory experience of viewing the state flower in full bloom.

But the neighborhood could be changing.

An Orange County man who owns 320 acres of Mojave Desert land next to the poppy fields wants to carve out a 3.6-mile course for racing, driving and testing cars. The proposed Fairmont Butte Motorsports Park would be used primarily for events sponsored by car clubs and racing organizations.

But the fact that the track would be only a mile from the state-protected reserve has alarmed environmentalists, residents, visitors and state parks officials, who fear the loss of serenity and vast stretches of land where wildflowers frequently grow.

"It's a terribly inappropriate business for that area," said Milt Stark, president of the Poppy Reserve/Mojave Desert Interpretive Assn., a volunteer group that gives tours and talks at the wildflower sanctuary.

"Visitors who come to see the poppies come out there to have peace and quiet."

Tom Malloy sees it differently. For the last seven years he has been trying to win approval to develop a motor sports park on his land, which is near the tiny community of Fairmont. The land is vacant, used primarily by trespassers who are looking for a place to race motorcycles or shoot guns.

"I feel the racetrack, run the way I want it run, would be an asset to the area," said Malloy, who owns a Los Angeles-based shoring equipment firm.

The racetrack would operate only during the daytime, Malloy said, and there would be no grandstand or large seating area, allowing for only a few spectators. He doesn't anticipate a throng of racing enthusiasts pouring into the area.

But according to a draft environmental impact report filed with Los Angeles County earlier this month, the park could expose nearby residents to dust during construction and excessive noise once it is up and running. It could also adversely affect the area's wildlife, which includes lizards, badgers and burrowing owls.

Most upsetting for flora and fauna lovers, the proposed racetrack would result in the loss of almost 140 acres within the project site, where seasonal wildflowers such as poppies, California buckwheat scrub and purple needle grass typically grow.

Though mitigation measures have been suggested to help reduce the dust, muffle the noise and decrease the risk of harm to wildlife, "no feasible measures exist" to prevent to loss of the wildflower fields, according to the impact report. The effects would be "significant and unavoidable."

Kathy Weatherman, a state parks superintendent in the Tehachapi area, said that in 2005 her agency sent a notice to the county's planning department outlining concerns about the proximity of the proposed track to the 1,800-acre reserve.

The southern portion of the project site falls within the boundaries of a county-designated "significant ecological area," a designation meant to protect the habitat of rare, endangered or threatened plants or animals.

Malloy contends that his venture will actually help the area. If given the go-ahead, he said, he would clean up the spent bullet casings that now litter much of the site, along with the trash and used household items that have been dumped there.

Trespassing motorcycle enthusiasts, whose bootleg racing sessions have transformed vegetation-ripe soil into bare dirt, would have to "go someplace else," he said.

Stark and others said the racetrack probably would attract more bikers and "people who are interested in that kind of thing."

Dean Webb, a local environmental activist and an Antelope Valley resident since 1960, said people driving on California 138 will be drawn to the track, bringing traffic and a stream of off-roaders.

"I hate to put it this way, but it would be, 'There goes the neighborhood,' " Stark said.

Not only the neighborhood, but the entire ambience of the community, said Mike Powell, who volunteers at the reserve. He worries that if Malloy gets approval, other enterprises will ask to set up shop nearby.

"That project represents the start of a significant threat to the kind of lifestyle and environment that many people moved out here for," Powell said.

The tranquillity and stark landscape are what compelled Northridge resident Linda Wang to visit the poppy reserve one recent season. She couldn't envision having a motor sports park nearby.

"I think it would be a little weird," she said.