Sunny skies take a toll on Rose Parade floats

Even as idyllically warm weather greeted huge crowds in Pasadena on Saturday, it also was busy hastening the demise of what they had come to marvel at: 42 flower-festooned floats.

In response to the oft-asked question -- What happens to all these roses when it’s over? -- some of the white-suited volunteers gave the standard, reassuring answer: They will be donated to hospitals and other worthy places.

But that seemed increasingly unlikely a day after the 121st Rose Parade as temperatures in the mid-70s lingered during the winter afternoon and hundreds of thousands of blooms -- nourished by vials artfully concealed on the floats -- imperceptibly began to wilt.

“Frankly, with the sun as strong as it is, they will have exhausted their water supply by tomorrow,” said Rick Phegley, director of the post-parade committee. “Some of them will be recycled for potpourri.”

He expected 60,000 to 70,000 spectators Saturday and said Friday’s post-parade crowd of about 24,000 was 20% higher than a year ago, which he guessed was bolstered in part by the mild weather.

As crowds gathered behind the sawhorses Saturday, the hues were still vibrant along the mile-long float fleet.

“They’re all out in full bloom and hanging on,” said Angela Thomas, 33, of Glendale.

Sean Keane, 29, and his sister Tricia, 34, both Ohio natives, were standing in front of the “California Girls” float constructed by volunteers from Sierra Madre.

A paean to the Southland, and built by the city of Sierra Madre, it featured strawflower windsurfers, leaping silver-leaf dolphins, a crushed-marigold sailboat and a purple-iris ocean. It won the Governor’s Trophy for best depiction of life in California.

Growing up in Cleveland, the Keanes said, they gathered around the television for years to watch the annual parade and Rose Bowl game, which to them embodied the lure of Southern California. They now live here.

Last week, Tricia Keane watched the Ohio State marching band practice “and noticed how pasty everybody was,” she said.

“You could tell it was the first time they’d seen sun in a while.”

Josh D’Acquisto, 38, the float-making program advisor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, said the entry this year -- a fantasia of wild animals, some with moving hydraulic parts, called “Jungle Cuts” -- represented the 62nd year that Cal Poly schools have entered a float in the parade. It won the Bob Hope Humor Trophy for the most comical and amusing float.

Cal Poly Pomona built the front half, featuring a shredded-coconut zebra with black onion-seed stripes, while Cal Poly San Luis Obispo built the back half, with its marigold 17-foot giraffes.

The halves were joined in October. Before the parade, the wire holding up one of the giraffe necks snapped and had to be repaired.

D’Acquisto said that the school grew 5% to 10% of the float’s flowers and that for student volunteers who designed and built it, the project is an illustration of the university motto, “Learn by doing.”

The floats will remain on view today at Sierra Madre and Washington boulevards from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with special access for the elderly and handicapped from 7 to 9 a.m.

christopher.goffard @latimes.com