Antelope Valley poppy blooms are at their peak now

California poppies are at their peak in the Antelope Valley right now, but don’t expect hillside carpets of orange this year. The poppies’ namesake reserve reports that grasses (mostly nonnative) shot up and overtook the smaller wildflowers, making this year’s bloom poor to average.

“I don’t think we’re going to get any better,” Judy Elgin, senior park aide at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, said today. “The grasses got enough rain that they were able to grow bigger and faster than normal.”

L.A. Times photographer Anne Cusack found patches of poppies along the trails Wednesday.

If you go wildflower hunting at the reserve, note that there are other flowers to see — pygmy lupine, goldfields, wild parsley — and that poppies close up if it’s cloudy or windy.

The reserve is 15 miles west of Lancaster at 15101 Lancaster Road. The visitor center, which remains open through mid-May, is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.

Other wildflower updates:

Death Valley National Park reports that wildflowers — desert gold, notch-leaf phacelia, desert five-spot and others — are at their peak at low elevations along Highway 190 north of Furnace Creek and along Scotty’s Castle Road north of Titus Canyon junction. The real beauties, evening primrose, appear to be gone — scarfed up by sphinx moths, according to the park’s website.

The show’s over at the low elevations of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, but flowers are out at the high elevations via hiking trails. Check the park’s wildflower map for the best routes.

Related story: “Wild about Anza-Borrego’s desert wildflowers”

– Mary Forgione, L.A. Times staff writer

[Photo: Anne Cusack]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 2:45 pm by Mary Forgione and is filed under California, Los Angeles, Outdoors & Adventure, Spring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.