Outdoors
March Is the Proverbial Windy Month here in San Diego, as in most places. From midday to late afternoon, sun-warmed air expands and rises over the county’s interior, drawing in an influx of cool air …
India Hawthorn (Rhaphiolepsis indica) is one of the most common flowering shrubs used in landscaping as hedges and dividers in San Diego. It is blooming best right now, with blossoms ranging in hue from pinkish …
Ornamental Peach Trees, with radiant white and pink blossoms, are lighting up the manicured landscape in Balboa Park’s west side. These and other “stone-fruit” trees, with and without edible fruits, belong to the genus Prunus. …
Mexican Coral Trees or “naked corals” are showing their stuff this season by bearing and baring scarlet, flamelike flowers on the tips of their twisting, leafless branches. Commonly planted as park and freeway landscaping, they …
The Pleasantly Pungent Odor Of Sage is filling the air wherever native vegetation grows on the county’s coastal and lower-foothill slopes. Most common are the black sage, with its tight clusters of small, white flowers; the …
Lupines, Whose Spiky, Purple (Sometimes Yellow) Flower Clusters adorn grassy areas and disturbed patches of soil, are beginning to pop up all over San Diego County. If desert rainfall continues, you’ll spot lupines along the sandy …
The Frost-Nipped Legacies of the this winter’s cold spells aren’t hard to spot, especially in the inland areas where overnight lows dipped to below freezing. Look for brown lawns, half-dead-looking avocado trees, and wilted ornamental …
If You’ve Seen Large Swatches of Yellow around town lately, it could be acacia longifolia. The South Eastern Australian native is a fast-growing, bushy, evergreen shrub that can grow to over twenty feet tall and …
Hummingbirds are zipping around San Diego County’s backyard gardens, scrub-covered coastal hillsides, and the warming Anza-Borrego Desert. Seasonal hummingbirds are making their way back to Southern California in preparation for breeding season in early Spring. …
Ornamental Pear Trees, one of the earliest-to-bloom trees in San Diego, are about to bear their white flowers. The thousands of blossoms appear in sheets and clusters, looking rather like snow when viewed from a …
Highest Monthly Rainfall totals in San Diego are most likely to occur in January and February (about 1.9 inches each, on average) according to weather-service statistics. If low temperatures accompany the typical Pacific storms of this …