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Showing posts with label Flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flowers. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The Carlsbad Ranunculus


Carlsbad is no Keukenhof! But then again, it does not claim to be the largest flower garden in the world. It is not even the largest garden in USA. In fact it is not a garden at all! It is a 50-acre commercial farmland that grows the world’s largest collection of giant tecolote ranunculus flowers. What makes this place a tourist hot spot during spring are the blooming of about 7 million of these ranunculus flowers. Just to add to the commercial value, they have placed the Pacific Ocean in the backdrop J  Oh, and some rolling hills for good measure!

Such a package is bound to attract a horde of photophiliacs and nature enthusiasts. Ramya and I believe that we have genes for both traits and may have passed on some to Achyuta. A small warning sounded somewhere inside that I had a presentation coming up in a week. But hey, spring comes only once a year…it was a weekend…and it is not socially acceptable to talk back to voices in your head. So, we all set off on a sunny and clear morning, driving down south on I5 towards San Diego. When we reached San Juan Capistrano, on Pacific Coast Highway, the weather magically changed to low flying mists that were intent on washing away all the fine particles and ozone into the Pacific Ocean. After a little less than a 2 hr drive, we parked outside the picturesque Carlsbad flower fields.

If one word can describe the view, it comes out something like stugorcolorifantabulous! This was in spite of the fact that it was not the best day for photography, thanks to the gloomy weather. But the large expanse of multi-colored flower field and the festive atmosphere more than made up for it. All support staff - at the ticket counter, wagon-drivers, flower pickers, flower- and fashion-police persons - were 60+ with energy levels of 20- and warm smiles of toddlers. It was very obvious they were around to enjoy themselves rather than to make ends meet to support the ever beefing college tuition. There were stalls of extravagant floral hats, curios of all sorts, strawberry shortcakes, fresh popcorn, a sweet pea maze, Santa playground and a rose garden. The Red Hat Society had a rendezvous and there were hundreds of Red Hatters in a large spectrum of stylish outfits. Almost everyone was enjoying the live bands playing the Blues. Kids were running around and the parents were busy trying to figure out how to get the best shot of their kids amidst the flowers.

Ah! Yes, the flowers! The field is on a slope that has its nadir at the entrance. Since we wanted to enjoy the floral treats at our own leisurely pace, we decided to walk around, instead of using the wagon ride. There are ranunculus flowers of 13 colors (red, gold, pink, yellow, orange, white, rose, salmon, picotee, café, purple, flame and merlot), all bouqueted with their own kind to form nice discreet rows. In the middle of each colorful row, there is an inlet to make photo memories. This works well both for the visitors as well as the flowers, that are protected by an additional green tape. We slowly walked up the trail that was slightly marred by the presence of houses and a resort on top of the hill. Nothing personal, but they ruined the view and quite a few photos too! When we reached the top, we were quite envious of them. They probably had one of the best views in Southern California, at least in Spring. It was breathtaking and would have been better if not for the clouds. The hill rolled down with colorful ranunculus to meet up with a large Dutch-style windmill across the street and tapered off at the horizon into the Pacific Ocean! We enjoyed the view for a long time as we sauntered to the other side of the hemi-field.

On our way down, we saw some of the farm employees picking flowers and loading them on to a truck. It is ironical that the flowers that treat hundreds of thousands of eyes for 2 months are allowed to dry up in the sun to take nature’s course to their ends. Apparently, this results in superior bulb crop for the next season. Only about 2% of the flowers are picked up and sold. So how do they make money? It is the bulbs that rake up the revenues! They are recovered at the end of summer and sold to customers around the world.

By then Achyuta had seen too many wagons go by us and was insisting on having a go himself. So, we headed towards the long line of wagon wannabes. One of the staff chatted with us and was kind enough to point out the best seats on the wagon. On we hopped and the wagon took us around the perimeter of the farm field. While it took us 4 hrs to walk 1/4th of the area by foot, the wagon ride brought us back in 10 mins. We did see the artist’s garden and the American floral flag, which were on the far south of the field. Only Achyuta had more fun this time around J We walked around the stalls and Ramya tried on a few fancy hats. We helped ourselves to some pop corn and settled to listen to the Blues. After downing a couple of cheese bean burritos at Rubio’s and buying some fresh strawberries from the adjacent farm, we said our byes to the giant ranunculus.

These colorful flowers have been heralding the Spring in Southern California since the 1920s, although the present establishment has a relatively short two decade history. They will continue to enthrall more visitors for another 3 weekends this year. So, if you are around the region, it is well worth a trip to enjoy nature at its colorful best. Make sure you take a lot of sunshine along J