Wildflowers abound after rain. How to view them from Stanislaus County to High Sierra
Wildflowers have begun blooming on the edges of Stanislaus County and could be especially vivid thanks to the wet winter.
The color kicks off in April in Knights Ferry to the east and the Diablo range to the west. The latter will fade as spring gets warmer. The bloom will go well into summer in parts of Tuolumne County that rise past 10,000 feet.
Familiar species including poppies, lupines and goldenrod await, along with many known to avid viewers. You just won’t see much on the San Joaquin Valley floor, which is mostly cropland and cities.
A few tips:
- Don’t trespass onto private land. Do take a selfie from an adjacent roadside if it’s safe.
- Don’t pick the flowers, even if it’s public land. They bear the seeds of future blooms. Of the California poppy, the official state flower as of 1903, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife says on its website: “It is often believed that there are laws prohibiting the cutting or damaging of the California poppy because it is the state flower. While there is no law protecting the California poppy specifically, California Penal Code Section 384a requires written landowner permission to remove and sell plant material from land that a person does not own, and removing or damaging plants from property that a person does not own without permission may constitute trespass and/or petty theft.”
- Check out Altamont Pass and other spots in the western hills in early spring. A bonus: The pasture grass will stay green longer than usual thanks to the rain.
- Head now also for Knights Ferry and the Red Hills, both of them federal recreation areas in the lower Sierra Nevada foothills. The latter has serpentine soil that is especially welcoming to wildflowers.
- Explore higher parts of the Sierra with the very rough rule of thumb: About every two weeks, the bloom starts 1,000 feet higher. You can find them around Pinecrest in late spring and Sonora Pass well into summer. Both are on Highway 108 from Modesto.
- Be careful amid the snowmelt and the muddy spots left by the storms.
- Learn more about wildflower species and seasons at the California Native Plant Society, www.cnps.org.
This story was originally published April 15, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
John Holland
The Modesto Bee