Drought Drains Poppy Preserve of Its Bloom

If you are thinking about packing a picnic lunch and spending the day amid a brilliant display of orange poppies in the Antelope Valley--think again.

For the second year in a row, the poppy season has been a disappointment, said Bob McAdams, the ranger at the state’s Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.

A lack of rain once again kept most of the orange poppies from blooming on the parched hills of the 1,740-acre preserve 13 miles west of Lancaster.

“We can cry and groan and moan and it won’t change the situation,” McAdams said.

The last time the poppies carpeted the hills in a blaze of color was in 1988 when the desert received almost 12 inches of rain. By comparison, only 4.2 inches fell this winter.

Preserve workers are telling the hundreds of people who call from around the state that this year’s flower harvest is “poor to light.”

“I don’t want to entice people to drive hundreds of miles to something they will be disappointed in seeing,” McAdams said.

The Lancaster Chamber of Commerce is giving callers the same bleak message.

Although many will stay away, that probably won’t harm the area’s economy because most visitors bring picnic lunches and leave by dark anyway, said Connie Wilson, a chamber spokeswoman.

Nonetheless, on April 1--the first big Sunday of the season--more than 3,000 people arrived, many with cameras, to look at the poppies.

Some complained, but the visitors are in a good mood compared to those who came two years ago after reading a newspaper article. The Los Angeles Times reported that the hills were covered with gorgeous blossoms, but the story wasn’t published until most of the flowers had disappeared, McAdams said.

The best poppy viewing this year is along Lancaster Road between Munz Ranch Road and the reserve, McAdams said.

The ranger was philosophical about the flowers’ poor showing this year.

“If the drought doesn’t break,” he said, “we’re going to be worried about more than flowers.”