Bloom Time: Flower Fields

Want to see Carlsbad's most colorful sight? It's happening now.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING: If you've ever put toothpicks in an avocado pit and placed it in a jar with water on the windowsill, you know that waiting for that first sprout can be difficult. Every day you check for a bit of green, but still, the pit won't show any leaf or stem. And then! It happens, seemingly all at once, and you have plant. For the people behind the Flower Fields in Carlsbad, it can be much the same wait, only over a much vaster area. How much vaster? Some fifty acres, acres full of Giant Tecolote Ranunculus flowers. Flowers in all different colors, eye-popping hues, really, hues so marvelous they tend to show up in travel brochures and postcards of the area. But when the blooms will show is another matter. No matter how well science can predict these things, weather and other factors play a part, meaning that despite the Flower Fields opening on March 1, the blooms might start to come a bit later. But the good news as March ends, and just in time for Easter and April, too? It's happening.

BLOOMS EVERYWHERE: The fields report that the "last block of flowers" is starting to open up, while all the other blocks are showing full-on dazzling, Technicolor-type shades of red and orange and yellow. And no, that just isn't the travel-brochure-y part of us talking; if you've seen the Flower Fields you know. These things are bright, so you'll want to arrive with a camera. There's a small admission fee to get in, but walking around the garden store in front of the fields is free (take a look -- it's a good one). And when do the fields call it another year? May 12, so best make for Carlsbad before nature takes its course, as it always does.

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