HikeArizona.COM

writelots wrote:I think the show may be spotty, but I'm betting that if you know where to look, you'll find some nice bloomers.

azpride wrote:

writelots wrote:I think the show may be spotty, but I'm betting that if you know where to look, you'll find some nice bloomers.

My prediction is the freeway medians will be the HOT SPOTS for wildflowers ;)

January 18, 2009, 7:04 p.m.
B. POOLE
Tucson Citizen
Don't expect a budding wildflower season this year.

Southern Arizona had a normal December, but the winter is not generating enough rain to spark a prime wildflower season, an area botanist said.

For wildflowers to germinate properly, they need a healthful dose of rain in winter, said George Montgomery, curator of botany at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

The Tucson rain total for December was average (just more than an inch), but October and November combined logged 0.29 of an inch versus 1.88 inches normal for the two-month period, the National Weather Service reports.

"It wasn't enough for widespread germination," Montgomery said.

There are no seedlings in wildflower hot spots from which he has heard reports, he said.

The outlook is much the same throughout the state. Picacho Peak State Park, a wildflower mecca 40 miles north of Tucson that in good years has extensive poppy fields, has had half the rain it got last year between September and January, said Arizona State Parks spokeswoman Ellen Bilbrey.

The December rain helped.

"But whether it was enough to really launch a full poppy bloom, we don't know yet," Bilbrey said.

The landscape at Picacho is greening up nicely, but it's mostly grass, she said.

"We haven't had any reports of flowers," she said.

Because wildflower blooms are different every year and different in every spot, it's hard to predict exactly where and when or if the colors will emerge.

Alamo Lake State Park between Phoenix and Havasu City had a great year in 2007 but was a dud last year, she said.