Poppies in the Breeze

Poppies in the Breeze. There's normally a light ocean breeze that finds it's way up the canyon. The sun was bright enough that it didn't blur my picture and, instead, just gave the flowers all a little tilt to the left. The wildflower experiment worked better than I had ever expected and the back yard is awash in color!

Drowned in Pollen

Ant Drowned in Poppy Pollen. A bee's thrill is this ant's nightmare... Trapped by steep, slippery sides and rolling in pollen, this ant is much worse for the wear.

Hypothesis: Poppies appear to be bee-pollinated based on what I've seen so far. Steep, slippery petals would keep out marauding ants while the pollen is fresh and/or until the bees have managed to pollinate the flower.

Spring Flowers

California Poppies and Lupine blooming alongside Highway 15 in Southern California. The fields and slopes are awash in Spring color and it is just amazing!

The Poppy Experiment

California Poppies, Escholzia californica, the poppy patch. I bought a bag of California Poppy seeds from Home Depot in March and tossed the seeds on the hillside as kind of a science experiment to see if they would all grow. Well, grow they did. There are poppies all over the hillside managing to sprout through the branches and bramble. They are growing, thriving and blooming in spite of the lack of rain. Of course, they are a California native. That's also probably why they are known for being pioneer plants after a fire in California (similar to fireweed in other areas of the country). They're tough, they bloom like little banshees and put on quite a show.

Lake Poway in Bloom

Lupine and California Poppies, Lake Poway. A couple of us hiked around Lake Poway on Sunday morning. It is absolutely drenched in wildflowers: poppies everywhere; two or three species of Lupine; two species of Phacelia in stunning blue and lavender; huge spikes of Agave and much more. It's even more amazing to see given the huge fires that ripped through this area in the past. You can still see the charred black carcasses of trees throughout the landscape surround by this profusion of flowers and, in some cases, new sprouts coming from the root base of bushes and trees or even out of the blackened branches on the ancient, huge, old oaks trees. Of course, poppies and lupine are specialists in taking advantage of areas cleared by fire. Still, you would hardly ever notice a fire had been through there unless you looked for the signs.

Poppy Field

Field of wild poppies in Durance, France. They are located a little further North than we are and are still having a lush Spring.

Spring Flowers

Here's a picture of the California Poppies and the wild Lupine in bloom off the side of U.S. Hwy. 15 on the road to the Santa Rosa Ecological Preserve. It's gotten hot now and the flowers are starting to taper off. It was a glorious Spring!

Spring Flowers Along Highway 805

Spring is really gorgeous in San Diego. Highway maintenance has planted all sorts of amazing flowers that just light up in Spring. There are huge swaths of California poppies and even bigger stretches of purple ice plant. This patch has a beautiful mix of Lupine and California Poppies. I used my little pocket camera but it's nice enough that I may need to haul the Nikon to work with me tomorrow (heavy bulky thing that it is...). Stay tuned.