The rain that has been falling in southern California for the last few months has done a great job of greening up our hillsides.  Driving from the Inland Empire to Orange County regularly for work has given me a good chance to look for wildflowers, and today my son and I took a drive south to Lake Elsinore.  Here are some observations for these areas.

• The northern end of the Santa Ana Mountains along the 91 Freeway and through the northern part of the 241 Tollroad are very green, and clusters of poppies are starting to appear on the hillsides, although getting to them will take some work as the hills are steep, and they’re high on the slopes (although they like are accessible via Gypsum Canyon Rd).  From the summit of the 241 Tollroad through Irvine on the 261, lupine are going crazy along the road cuts.  While there are a lot of flowers, photographing them may be challenging, as there is a freeway within about 5 yards of the flower patches.  Nevertheless, there are lots of lupine right now.  If you continue into southern Irvine on the 241, there seems to be less flowers.
• Driving south on the 15 Freeway through Lake Elsinore, there are very few poppies to speak of.  Off of Lake Street, there is some color starting to appear, but further south off of Railroad Canyon road, there are few, if any, poppies blooming.  I have heard there are a few more poppies off of El Toro Rd. (exit the 15 at Nichols), but still pretty lackluster so far this year.

Our average temperatures have been as much at 10 degrees below normal, and this very well is what could be causing the lackluster showing so far this year.  The temperature is slated to warm up beginning tomorrow, so I would think that if the poppies et al. are going to make an appearance this year, we would see it in the next 2-3 weeks.

California poppies near Lake Elsinore, March 2008