Next Power Flower Up: Roses Abloom

The Tournament of Roses HQ and The Huntington are both seeing a burst of rosy color.

If some enterprising Golden Stater hasn't yet developed some sort of app, or even an old-school wall map, that pinpoints the ocotillo flowers of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park or the lupine of Mono County or the poppies of the Antelope Valley, well, they best get on that, for the first desert buds of 2018 are only 10 months away.

It's been a banner, bees a-buzzin', road-trippers a-comin' year for many wildflower destinations around Southern and Central California, and our mountain areas haven't even fully gone into high, glorious gear on the 2017 flower front.

But there's another bloomer pulling out the stops, and while it isn't wild, and you don't have to know a secret canyon or hill where it is especially lush, you can find it by heading to San Marino or Pasadena.

Hold onto your flower-finding apps and maps, buddists: The rose is having its major moment. Nope, it isn't quite as quirky, or quirkily named, as some of the desert flowers, and roses do demand some notable attention and particular care.

Goodness, though. There's a reason that a whole parade is named after them, scratch that, a tournament: Roses are showstoppers, ovation-getters, drop-the-curtain superstars, in appearance, in fragrance, in sonnet lore, in everything.

And, scratch that, part two: Roses actually do sport quirky monikers, individually, from Jump for Joy to Good as Gold.

Now that we're just about 100 days along from the Tournament of Roses, though, it is time to get your rose fill, both at the historical Tournament House on Orange Grove Boulevard and at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

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Both destinations are reporting dazzling petal output in this, the second week of April, with more rosy marvels to come in May. (In fact, Descanso Gardens in nearby La Cañada Flintridge lists "May" as an excellent time for rose bloomage.)

For sure, some wildflowers are still reigning, out in various dells and glens near our metropolis, but as for the flower that has long held holiday sway and poetic cred? The rose is queen, in Pasadena, in San Marino, and several points beyond this April.

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