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Spring wildflowers may have largely dried up in most areas of San Diego County, but in the cooler coastal enclaves such as Cabrillo National Monument and Torrey Pines State Reserve, several kinds remain. Look for paintbrush, purple nightshade, coreopsis, sea fig, popcorn flower, and red monkey flower, among others.
Oleander bushes, now beginning to bloom in gardens and along roadsides in the interior valleys and desert, will continue putting on a good show through the summer. Good displays of white, pink and red varieties can be seen along the medians of Interstate 8 in east El Cajon and along Interstates 5 and 15 in parts of North County. Oleander's toxic characteristics are well-known: all parts of it are poisonous if ingested.
Wild rose, a California native, is in bloom in San Diego County's foothills and mountains. In moist, lowland areas and along small watercourses, wild rose shows off small, florescent-pink flowers. By June and July, the rose bloom will reach the Laguna Mountains, where the plant grows in abundance in shady locales.
Agaves, or century plants, have been sending up their asparagus-like flower stalks all over the San Diego area lately. In warm weather, the tips can rise as much as a foot a day. During summer big clusters of yellow and green flowers should appear on the tops of the stalks, some up to 30 feet tall. After the blooming cycle ends, the spine-tipped, fleshy daggers at the base of the stalk die (after a life of 10 or 20 years, not a century) and the stalk dries up, but suckers usually remain to continue a new cycle of growth, flowering, seed production and death. The smaller desert agaves, which are native to the western edge of the Anza-Borrego Desert, are now finishing their blooming cycle.
Spring wildflowers may have largely dried up in most areas of San Diego County, but in the cooler coastal enclaves such as Cabrillo National Monument and Torrey Pines State Reserve, several kinds remain. Look for paintbrush, purple nightshade, coreopsis, sea fig, popcorn flower, and red monkey flower, among others.
Oleander bushes, now beginning to bloom in gardens and along roadsides in the interior valleys and desert, will continue putting on a good show through the summer. Good displays of white, pink and red varieties can be seen along the medians of Interstate 8 in east El Cajon and along Interstates 5 and 15 in parts of North County. Oleander's toxic characteristics are well-known: all parts of it are poisonous if ingested.
Wild rose, a California native, is in bloom in San Diego County's foothills and mountains. In moist, lowland areas and along small watercourses, wild rose shows off small, florescent-pink flowers. By June and July, the rose bloom will reach the Laguna Mountains, where the plant grows in abundance in shady locales.
Agaves, or century plants, have been sending up their asparagus-like flower stalks all over the San Diego area lately. In warm weather, the tips can rise as much as a foot a day. During summer big clusters of yellow and green flowers should appear on the tops of the stalks, some up to 30 feet tall. After the blooming cycle ends, the spine-tipped, fleshy daggers at the base of the stalk die (after a life of 10 or 20 years, not a century) and the stalk dries up, but suckers usually remain to continue a new cycle of growth, flowering, seed production and death. The smaller desert agaves, which are native to the western edge of the Anza-Borrego Desert, are now finishing their blooming cycle.