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Fremont Cottonwoods along the San Diego River in Mission Gorge will show off their best iridescent green foliage later this month. The Old Mission Dam parking area on Father Junipero Serra Trail, off Mission Gorge Road (west of Santee), is a good place to begin a stroll on trails near the riverbed. Be careful -- rattlesnakes may be out and about this time of year.
Desert Agaves, or century plants, are sending up their asparagus-like flower stalks on rocky hillsides throughout much of the Anza-Borrego Desert. On warm, sunny days the stalks may grow almost one foot per day (fast enough for you to notice the sharp leaf tips at the bud actually separating from one another). After the stalk reaches a height of 10-20 feet, clusters of waxy, yellow flowers appear, ready for pollination by bees and other insects. After blooming, the fleshy, dagger-like leaves at the base of the plant die (after a life of 10 or 20 years, not a century) and the stalk, bearing a crop of seeds, dries up as well.
Fremont Cottonwoods along the San Diego River in Mission Gorge will show off their best iridescent green foliage later this month. The Old Mission Dam parking area on Father Junipero Serra Trail, off Mission Gorge Road (west of Santee), is a good place to begin a stroll on trails near the riverbed. Be careful -- rattlesnakes may be out and about this time of year.
Desert Agaves, or century plants, are sending up their asparagus-like flower stalks on rocky hillsides throughout much of the Anza-Borrego Desert. On warm, sunny days the stalks may grow almost one foot per day (fast enough for you to notice the sharp leaf tips at the bud actually separating from one another). After the stalk reaches a height of 10-20 feet, clusters of waxy, yellow flowers appear, ready for pollination by bees and other insects. After blooming, the fleshy, dagger-like leaves at the base of the plant die (after a life of 10 or 20 years, not a century) and the stalk, bearing a crop of seeds, dries up as well.