This week’s hot weather is a reminder that spring in San Francisco is quirky.
But wildflower lovers know that after the loved (or hated) chartreuse glow of invasive oxalis dissipates in April, there are still precious weeks to hunt late spring blooms, before grasses turn brown and the fog takes over.
“San Francisco blooms generally last through May,” says Christopher Campbell, natural resources manager of the SF Recreation and Parks Department.
Since the pandemic, Campbell has been shocked by the volume of people enjoying wildflowers in the city’s open spaces: “In my 27 years working in the parks, it is one of the biggest differences I’ve seen.”
Fortunately, some of our favorite spots are also less traveled, rewarding patient and close observers.
Campbell says there’s another reason to keep your eyes peeled: “You’ll see birds making nests, bees collecting nectar, gophers dragging fleshy plants into their holes, and red-tailed hawks swooping down at them. You can really commune with nature in a magnificent way when wildlife is frolicking around you in spring.”
Campbell’s team manages the 32 different natural areas in the city’s parks – a big job for a relatively small city. They support native blooms, which in turn support indigenous animals, by removing invasive species and diversifying open spaces.
Because of the twenty-degree variation in temperature from west to east, San Francisco supports a diverse range of ecosystems, including dunes, grasslands, shrubs, rocky outcrops, and oak woodlands. There are wildflowers to be seen in every one.
Rec & Park sports a list of the most popular bloom spots. We spent the week exploring one of them, plus three more not on the list that have plenty of other rewards – and no lack of resplendent spring color, especially if you go this weekend.
Glen Canyon, Glen Park
Campbell’s favorite trail in San Francisco is Glen Canyon’s Creek to Peaks trail. No other route offers native plants in such a variety of natural landscapes that stretch from shady Islais Creek, to rocky scrublands overlooking the canyon, to the grassy hilltop of Twin Peaks.
Even a loop within the canyon itself provides plenty of spring eye candy.
After passing through the eucalyptus tunnel behind the recreation center, I make my way down to the puddles of the creek. Wild onion lilies have begun to sag, but cow parsnip, calla lilies, and even a few Douglas irises are standing strong.
The creek bed hums with a ridiculous number of dragonflies and damselflies, and squirrels rustle in the leaves as dogs, their walkers, and joggers pass by.
Moving up into the sunshine, white blossoms dot the blackberry brambles. Blue-eyed grass and California buttercups line the paths as sticky monkey flower adds splashes of gold to the hillside. And thanks to my phone’s photo ID tool, I learn that a bush with a strange-looking blossom is an invasive with a stranger name: white ramping fumitory.
Black Point Historic Gardens, Fort Mason
In a single square acre, the Black Point Historic Gardens pack quite a punch of late-spring blooms. The gardens opened to the public in 2021, and when I visited then, the terraces overlooking Aquatic Park were mainly filled with volunteers and gardeners clearing and planting. It was a heavy lift – a half century of overgrowth had accumulated since the Army pulled up stakes in the 1970s.
As a card-carrying California poppy freak, I can never get enough of that perfect orange. Right now it’s nonstop, with bonus poppy flavors in pale yellow, magenta, and two-tones also blooming right now.
While the poppies steal the show for me, silver bush lupine, elegant Clarkia, mustard, wild radish, yellow bush lupine and yarrow stretch out in the sun. Rock phacelia, stone crop, tidy tips and borage line the walls.
My iPhone introduces me to purple Chinese houses and the California bee plant or figwort. A squadron of fat fuzzy black bumblebees patrol the whole place. Set just below Officer’s Row in Fort Mason, the garden dates from the 1850s, when early big-deal San Franciscans like John C. Fremont lived on the hill and promenaded past fruit trees, roses, and other exotics lining the private paths that descended to the waterfront.
The easiest way to enter the gardens is from the Van Ness Avenue side, but I prefer to wander in from the top of Fort Mason.
Two batteries were built on Black Point during the Civil War, not surprising given the views that stretch from downtown to Alcatraz to the Golden Gate. (A shiny black cannon still points west.) After taking in the vista, follow the barking of sea lions eastward, along a narrow bluffside path that opens into an amphitheater of gardens with views of Aquatic Park Cove swimmers, the Ghirardelli sign, and the three masts of the Balcutha moored at the Hyde Street Pier.
To be sure, it isn’t fair to compare blooms in a natural open space to those in a tended public garden like this one, but I don’t think wildflower fans will quibble after a May day in Black Point.
Sutro Dunes, Outer Richmond
Picture yourself heading north on the Great Highway. Just past Golden Gate Park, but before climbing up to the Cliff House, there’s an empty lot facing the ocean below Sutro Heights. Rec & Park and Google Maps call this zone the Balboa Natural Area, but it used to be known as Sutro Dunes.
Left over after Playland at the Beach was torn down in favor of the current condo complex, the wedge of open space is fenced off from roads on both sides. Visitors can enter near the corner of Balboa and La Playa streets for a short walk through the dunescape, with seaside daisies and coastal sand verbena fighting for sandy space amid the ice plant.
Sticky monkey flower, lupine, and patches of Indian paintbrush fill the field.
To extend your stay and get some exercise, head back to Balboa and La Playa and look for the overgrown steps and climb the dune through tall stands of lupine, as well as non-natives tree mallow and Pride of Madeira. This eventually takes you to Sutro Heights Park, the site of Adolph Sutro’s turn-of-century public park and garden that spared little expense.
At the top, I had an Ocean Beach view to myself and Sutro’s remnants to explore.
Lobos Creek and Mountain Lake, The Presidio
The southwest corner of the Presidio is a place to explore in all seasons, whether along the beaches at extreme low tide or across the bluffs as the foghorns boom.
Like the missing rug at the heart of the cult film The Big Lebowski, fresh water – not the ocean – really ties this part of the park together.
A half-mile boardwalk that snakes around Lobos Creek Valley doesn’t provide much view of the free-flowing creek itself, but the short jaunt is like the Hindu holiday of Holi. Every 30 seconds, you get hit with another volley of color.
Right now, sturdy bushes of yellow and purple lupine are in fine form, and you’ll get occasional peeks of sticky monkey flower (gold) and Indian paintbrush (red). Keep a lookout for the rare dune gilia and blue dicks, both swaying on stalks like violet pom-poms.
Blue dicks and sticky monkey flower. (Photos: Alex Lash)
Start at the Presidio Trust maintenance yard across from the Baker Beach parking lot, look for the information kiosk, and walk the boardwalk eastward on a slight incline. It ends at a small set of stairs. If you’re itching for more blooms, head for more rare SF fresh water – the nearby Mountain Lake Park. (Oddly enough, Lobos Creek originates near the lake but doesn’t flow from it.) The journey is half the fun (see map) and you might hear or spot a great horned owl if it’s close to dusk.
Once at the lake, a paved path circles around the north side, where you’ll find more glowing monkey flower, Seussian stalks of cow parsnip, and – always a fine reward for the close observer – a few deep-purple Douglas irises.
Cow parsnip and Douglas iris. (Photos: Alex Lash)
Finish up on a new wooden platform that overhangs the lake on its south side, next to the playground, and just like Christopher Campbell suggests, drink it all in. You’ll see plenty of birds, including red-winged blackbirds, ducks, and grebes, and perhaps a Western pond turtle or a stickleback in the shallows.
Where native plants thrive, the rest of us do too.
Alex Lash contributed to this story.