Wildflowers are already popping up in SLO County. What are chances of big bloom?
The grassy hills of the Carrizo Plain National Monument may be in for a wildflower bloom this spring after all.
Rain showers doused San Luis Obispo County in November and late December, but the area hasn’t seen much rain since, Carrizo Plain Conservancy board president Neil Havlik said in a newsletter on Thursday.
Without mid-winter rain, Havilk originally predicted a weak wildflower season at the Carrizo Plain, he said.
“I was getting concerned that maybe we were in for a bust this spring — and we may yet be,” he wrote.
But flower fanatics aren’t out of luck yet.
Visitors recently spotted a variety of flowers in the Temblor Range, from small, yellow fiddlenecks to a spray of blue phacelias.
“The rains were large and soaked the ground, so what has suddenly begun to happen is that the drier, west facing slopes have suddenly come alive with hillside daisies,” Havlik wrote.
But it could take some time to see flowers elsewhere in the Carrizo Plain.
“The valley floor and east facing slopes of the Caliente Range are still cool and not so far advanced in their maturity,” he wrote.
Havlik said it’s possible that the peak of the bloom in the Temblor Range will occur during the next couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, if the Carrizo Plain receives enough rain the next two months, there could be a significant bloom of flowers in the valley floor.
“Once again the Carrizo is showcasing its unpredictability,” Havlik wrote.
The Madre Fire burned part of Caliente Ridge, burning and potentially killing numerous juniper shrubs. The Carrizo Plain Conservancy will monitor the area to see what plants grow back.
“We are hoping it will be adding to the diversity of the vegetation and creating new habitat in the burned areas,” Havlik wrote. “Mixed with the junipers are lots of shrubby Tucker oaks, many of which also burned, but they are expected to resprout quickly.”
This story was originally published January 31, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
