March 7-9, 2006 Tour of Wildflowers in/near Anza Borrego Park

This page last modified on 12 March, 2006

Up until the weekend commencing 10 March, 2006 the current winter...spring season has been extraordinarily dry in San Diego County. The substantial rain this weekend, and a smaller amount two weeks ago, may help to restore blooms in some parts of the county starting a few weeks from now.

We went to the Anza Borrego Park area in the Borrego Valley, and further south along County Route S2, out of curiosity to see whether any plants might be blooming in such a dry year. As the photos shown here demonstrate, resulting from this 2 1/2 day tour, there were many shrubs and some perennials in bloom in several places in the Borrego valley. There were hardly any annuals in bloom, with those that were being few and far between.

Along S2 south of the Scissors Crossing, conditions were extremely dry, and it was hard to find anything in bloom (I'm showing a few samples).  Because of the extremely strong wind on 9 March, plus the dry conditions, we spent only half a day in several likely areas in that area.

The best area was in the upper reaches of Coyote Canyon Wash (at least to just beyond the Desert Gardens monument). With the rain that fell in that area on 10 - 12 March, the flowers should get more interesting in a few weeks.

The Anza Borrego Park website, as of 11 March, mentions a small number of canyon locations where flowers had been seen recently. We went to one of those, Hawk Canyon on 8 March, and found there were a few widely scattered small plants in bloom in addition to the larger shrubs. If more rain fell there since then, that location should become more interesting too.

As usual, a few of my identifications are tentative and/or questionable - and I will appreciate feedback from anyone who can help me to correct those ID's.

Enjoy ... Ken Bowles