Texas Spring Wildflowers are Blooming

Howdy! I’m Danni, resident Innkeeper at San Gabriel House Bed & Breakfast! One of the reasons we moved to Georgetown, here at the edge of the Hill Country of Texas, was because of the incredible spring wildflowers – and Texas Wildflower Season is upon us! Texas is famous for our wildflowers. The glorious vista of roadways blanketed in rich blue and vibrant orange, fields of gold and pink, and here in Georgetown, yards of brilliant red, draw people on countless road trips and vacations each March through May.

Where do all these colorful flowers come from? The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) noticed that wildflowers popping up after road construction helped prevent soil erosion, and were awfully darned pretty. In the ‘30s TxDOT preserved this beauty by delaying mowing until after the wildflowers had bloomed and seeded. Then they started actually collecting and sowing seeds each year: about 30,000 pounds of seeds each year along more than 800,000 miles of highways and byways throughout the state!

There are many folks who ardently watch each year and try to predict the profusion and locations of the best wildflower displays. Rainfall amounts in the autumn and winter can greatly impact the showing in spring. However, festivals and events occur regardless of the amount of flowers, because there are always wildflowers in the spring.

A couple of my go-to sources for predictions, sightings and travel routes are: Texas Highways magazine (TexasHighways.com and search for “Wildflower Drives”) and the Texas Wildflower Report page on Facebook.

Make sure you stay safe and respectful when you look for that perfect bed of bluebonnets. Please respect private property; do not trample on or pick the wildflowers (not because it’s illegal, which is the tale often told, but because that prevents the flowers from reseeding for the following year); if you pull over on a road, be sure to choose a safe area and pull completely off the roadway.

And those colors I mentioned earlier? Bluebonnets (of course!), brilliant orange Indian paintbrush, warm gold coreopsis, pink evening primrose, and Georgetown’s red poppies. For even more information, check out this guide from Texas Highways.