A Quick Note on the 'Super Blooms'

A Link To An Article I Wrote + Hersey Family Art Show Sitting Tomorrow!

Since 2016, when the National Park Service published a press release with the term “super bloom” the media hasn’t been able to get enough of the spectacle of California native wildflowers since. It seems like every two years there’s another claim of a big bloom. But, as ecologist Richard Minnich, once said to a reporter, “it’s all in the eye of the beholder.” In other words, ecologically speaking, the term means nothing.

However, the big blooms are a welcome sight. Native California wildflowers have been facing an uphill battle since the arrival of Spanish missionaries and explorers. These people brought seeds for farming that have terraformed much of the California landscapes into grasslands that are unrecognizable to what indigenous people thrived off and loved for generations. And with the arrival of these invasive species, native flowers were pushed out of their ecological place.

Now, as the rainy seasons are shortening, starting with colder days and ending too soon for the native plants to produce many seeds from their flowers, climate change poses another serious risk to the remaining inhabitants native to these lands.

If you’re going out to marvel at these truly beautiful “super blooms” this spring, please have respect for the fragility of the lives of these flowers. They need our care — they have been at the whims of our mistakes for too long.

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To read the full article I wrote about climate change’s impact on native California Wildflowers, read it here!

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If any of you all are free tomorrow from 12pm to 5:30pm, I’ll be hanging out at Gospel Flats Farm Stand showing people around the art show. Hope to see some of y’all out there :)