Wildflower Walks

Charlie Marquardt, Interpretive Ranger

With the spring season in full force here in the mountains and our annual wildflowers giving us a riot of colors throughout our Artist's Palette venue, we have started our wildflower walks once again. On Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. until 1 pm, we will have a wildflower station set up in our Falling Waters venue behind the information kiosk. Our naturalists will talk about the various species of annuals blooming, as well as the ecology of native California plants.

Conceived in 2016, the Artist's Palette wildflowers venue features a variety of species, including our state flower, the California poppy. Contrasting with the deep blues and purples of baby blue eyes, California bluebells, arroyo lupines, and distant phacelias, the golden orange of the poppies and the yellows of the tidy tips, fiddlenecks and goldfields mingle for a showy spring display.

The wildflowers of the Artist's Palette are all annuals (as opposed to our perennial plants and flowering shrubs in the Hummingbird Hill and Falling Waters venues). Like most California annual wildflowers, with the right rain and temperature conditions, they have a massive bloom in early to late spring, then quickly go to seed before the dry heat of the summer.

Unfortunately, weather conditions were not ideal this year: here in Oak Glen we had night time temperatures regularly in the 30's and 40's just as the seeds were germinating, and these temps seemed to slow the growth of many of the plants. However, while there are large swaths with virtually no annual wildflowers, there are also some very robust displays with a variety of colors, particularly along the ranch road at the top of the venue.

Come join us for a celebration of spring! Oak Glen Preserve is open daily free of charge from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm.

Bird Walks and the Rare Rufous Hummingbird