Viewing and flower tours
Superblooms and desert wildflower walks
In some years, after good rain, deserts in California, Chile and elsewhere flower all at once, and people travel to see it.
Presented by ClearTrust Free for gardeners, florists, travellers and the curious.
A superbloom is an unusually heavy flowering of wild annual plants across a desert or dry grassland. Seeds can lie in the soil for years. When autumn and winter rain arrives in the right amounts, they sprout together and cover the ground in colour for a few weeks. It cannot be booked in advance, which is part of why people chase it.
What it is
In California the best-known sites are Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the Carrizo Plain, Death Valley and the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve near Lancaster. The colours come from orange California poppies, blue and purple lupins and phacelias, yellow daisies and pink sand verbena. In northern Chile the same event is called the desierto florido, the flowering desert. It appears in the southern Atacama, around Copiapó and Vallenar, in the years when rain reaches it.
Why it happens
Desert annuals survive drought as seed. Many seeds carry chemicals that stop them sprouting until enough rain has washed through the soil, so a brief shower does not trick them. A good year needs soaking rain early in the cool season, more rain at intervals, mild temperatures and no drying winds. Then plants grow fast, flower, set seed and die within weeks. In California the peak falls between late February and April. In the Atacama it falls between September and November.
How to see one
Park services and local wildflower hotlines post reports through the season, and timing changes with altitude: low desert first, higher ground later. Most flowers can be seen from marked trails and roadside stops. Sudden fame causes problems. In 2019 crowds drawn by social media overwhelmed the town of Lake Elsinore, and its poppy canyon was later closed in bloom season. Going on a weekday, and to a less famous site, is kinder to the place and more pleasant.
How to take part
- Follow the park's own wildflower updates from late winter and be ready to travel at short notice.
- Start early. Poppies close in cold, cloud and wind, and open in sun.
- Carry plenty of water, a paper map and a full fuel tank. Phone signal is poor.
- Bring a hand lens or use your camera close up. Many desert flowers are tiny.
Good manners
- Stay on trails. Sitting or lying in the flowers for a photograph kills them and the seed they would have set.
- Do not pick flowers or collect seed in parks and reserves.
- Park only in marked places, never on the vegetation at the roadside.
The flowers
California poppyThe golden-orange wildflower and state flower of California
LupinTall, spiky-flowered legumes grown for gardens, food, and soil health
Desert sand-verbenaA low-growing wildflower with sweet-scented magenta blooms in sandy desert placesAlso part of it, and being written: Phacelia, Encelia farinosa.
Sources and further reading
Original text by the Phool desk, written with AI assistance. Customs vary from place to place. If we have something wrong, tell us.