Desert wildflower season

"The wildflowers are blooming!"

When my mother, Marion Deaver, exclaimed this on a weekend it meant we were headed for the desert to check out the wildflowers.

My mom knew each of her favorite spots and which wildflowers would be blooming there in a year with "appropriate" rainfall. That meant that there would have to be fall rains to help the seeds germinate, and spring rains to bring them up and to bloom in all their glory.

We would travel to "Nine Mile Hill", east of Mojave, to look for desert candles on each side of the road. For those of you who did not live in East Kern before the 58 freeway was built, heading east to Nine Mile Hill is, of course, nine miles east and is a slight incline on the road. Some would call it a hill, others barely noticed it.

When I was little I wanted to know if "they" called it that because it was nine miles high. My dad, Paul Deaver, patiently explained it to me what the name meant.

Since California is in its fourth year of a major drought I had little hope of seeing many wildflowers. Sure, maybe a few fiddlers neck (which my mom always called fiddleneck), perhaps some other small flowers in vacant lots around town, but nothing spectacular.

But wait, we did have a few fall rains and, amazingly, we have had some recent spring rains, and the wildflowers are blooming!

I was going to go to the desert and do my own scouting last week, but unfortunately I caught a "24 hour" bug, that managed to last more than 24 hours, so I was housebound for a few days. I did speak to my wildflower-loving friends and asked them to scout for me.

I also spoke to Gayle Stewart, my avid cyclist friend, and she told me she rode near Caliente and saw poppies and some lupine. I drove to Lancaster recently (before the flu) and witnessed coreopsis blooming near Soledad Mountain. On the way to Bakersfield one can see fiddleneck and some poppies.

Another friend told me that they had read in an Antelope Valley newspaper that there are early poppies starting to bloom at the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve, along with brodiaea, which is also known as desert hyacinth.

According to DesertUSA Magazine, which features a wildflower report regularly in the spring, it included photos of desert candles blooming near Ridgecrest, right now. Usually these also bloom east of California City, in the "second community", on the way to Silver Saddle.

Coreopsis can be found in a good year heading south of Mojave on Holt Road, with heliotrope, peeking out from under the creosote bushes.

We used to see desert asters west of Mojave, near the CHP scales facility. Bush lupine is always found at the top of Oak Creek Pass, clutching on the sides of the cut that runs through the pass. Lupine is usually found on the way to Bakersfield, especially in fields on the way to Arvin.

One of my favorites also blooms in that area and it is called owl's clover, adding a beautiful lavender color to the fields.

I love to learn about flowers that I don't recognize. I asked my good friend Bonnie Ulrich Bennett about some flowers growing on Highway 14, north before Red Rock Canyon. I thought they were indian paintbrush, but she said no, they were apricot mallow. Another new favorite added to my "collection".

When I was little and my mom found wildflowers she could not identify, she would pick a leaf or bloom and send me across the valley to take them to Estelle Ulrich's house (Bonnie's grandmother) – the real expert – so that she could name them. I loved doing that because she would sniff them, taste them, look in her ancient book of wildflowers, and tell me their names. That's how I learned about phacelia.

I could go on about this forever, but my column can only be so long. Take an afternoon, drive around our area and look for yourself. You will love it.

If you don't know what it is, email a photo of it to The Loop newspaper ([email protected]), and we will find out what it is for you.