Experts Predict A Particularly Lush Bluebonnet Season In Texas

Spring is just around the bend, and in Texas, that means bluebonnets. Fields and fields of bluebonnets, dousing the state’s roadways in shades of purple and blue. 

KXAS-TV recently spoke with a number of experts, who explained that heavy fall rains and above-average temperatures point to a particularly lush wildflower season in Texas. In fact, in some Southern areas of the state, bluebonnets have already begun blooming.

“I think it’s going to be an above-average spring, particularly when it comes to bluebonnets,” Andrea DeLong-Amaya, the director of horticulture at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, told the Dallas-Fort Worth news station. “We had good fall rain when the seedlings were just starting to come up, and that continued through the winter.”

Julie Marcus, senior horticulturist at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, shared a similar prediction, adding that warmer temperatures have her and her peers “a little worried” about the blooms peaking earlier than normal. 

"We've had above normal rainfall in the fall which is good because that's when not only bluebonnets but the other wildflowers typically germinate,” Marcus told KXAS-TV. "But we've had such warmer temperatures, seasonally warm temperatures, that have caused them to bloom a little earlier.” 

The popular state flower typically blooms toward late March and continues through mid-to-late April. As CultureMap Dallas points out, Southern cities like Austin, Houston, and San Antonio are already experiencing their early blooms, while farther north in Dallas-Fort Worth, it might be another two weeks before any bluebonnets show themselves.

“It’s like a gradient from south to north,” DeLong-Amaya explained. “It’s warmer generally as you go south, so they bloom a little bit earlier.”

Happy wildflower peeping, y’all!