Where to see Southern California wildflowers

Poppies are beautiful when they cover the desert hillsides in orange flowers. But poppies are also fickle: If there’s too much rain, the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve can only expect a moderate poppy season. Too dry? Not a great bloom either (but you could still see some other wildflowers).

Which leads us to this year’s peculiar season: There simply aren’t many poppies to see yet at the Poppy Reserve itself. The surrounding desert looks pretty colorful—largely yellow with thick patches of poppies on some pieces of private property. But at the actual Reserve, brome grasses and fiddlenecks have outcompeted poppies due to all of the rain. So, yes, you’ll see poppies in patches, but it’s not really extraordinary—at least not quite yet.

In a typical year, peak poppy season is usually from March to mid-April—a short window if you want to catch the blooms at their height. Check the park’s website for the latest bloom status (or tune in to the livestream), as well as our full guide to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.

A particularly wet winter in 2016–17 brought a superbloom to the Anza-Borrego Desert, but this year we saw something even more out-of-the-ordinary: a mid-winter bloom. As of early April, the park says you can find patches of flowers in the northern part of the park at Henderson Canyon Road, the entrance to Coyote Canyon and the Cactus Loop Trail at Tamarisk Grove; and in the southern section at June Wash and Vallecito Wash.

In a typical year, you can expect to see desert gold poppies, phacelia and a variety of tiny “belly flowers.” Of all the locations, Henderson Canyon tends to be the easiest to reach, though each canyon—like Borrego Palm Canyon and Coyote Canyon—offers different varieties (check the website for variety and trail information as the season progresses).

This sprawling grassland in southeastern San Luis Obispo County may stretch past what we’d typically consider Southern California, but the three-hour trip is often well worth it after a wet winter. Make no mistake: On most days you’ll find an arid, dry lake bed at the center of this national monument. But if the conditions are just right—as they memorably were in 2017—you may spot a couple of weeks where the hillsides turn into rolling carpets of daisies, goldfields and other yellow, orange and purple flora. As of early April, with flowers just about at their peak, the display isn’t quite as dramatic as you see in the old photo above—but you’ll still find carpets of yellow with complementing patches of purple. Just a heads up: The roads around here are pretty uneven, with the final stretch of the drive on dirt roads.