Laguna’s Bloomin’ Miracle : Park Visitors Can View Flower Show Emerging in the Wildfires’ Wake

Mother Nature has made an artist’s palette of the hills above this city.

Where fire-charred tree skeletons gave the landscape the appearance of an alien planet, bright purple snapdragons push toward the sky. Black ashen soil has given way to carpets of swaying pink Mariposa lilies. And the burned prickly pear plants still occasionally visible have now been joined by white popcorn flowers and stately red Indian paintbrushes.

“We’ve seen wildflowers this year that we just haven’t seen before,” said Larry Sweet, the Orange County park ranger who oversees the 2,540-acre Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. “For many of us this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see such a bloom; it really is an ongoing bouquet.”

Nearly seven months after a wildfire swept over close to 17,000 acres in and near Laguna Beach, nature is showing who’s boss. And this Saturday, hundreds of people are expected to convene at the park for a rare opportunity to tour the land on their own during an open house celebrating the earth’s victory over disaster.

“It’s really beautiful out there,” said Sharen Heath, a park docent and one of the planners of the gathering. “Those of us who go come back feeling heartened. Every week it gets greener and greener.”

Biologists say they aren’t surprised by the spectacular display of spring growth in the burned-out areas.

In removing the usual cover of coastal sage scrub, they say, the fire fertilized the soil with a rich mixture of ash and other nutrients and exposed the seed-rich earth to life-giving rays of light.

As a result, they say, an array of wildflowers--called “fire followers” for their habit of lying dormant in the soil until after a fire--are getting their brief moments in the sun.

“The ecologists promised us a show and we’ve got one,” said Elisabeth Brown, a biologist with Laguna Greenbelt, a grass roots environmental organization. “Flowers that you sometimes see in ones or twos, now you see whole carpets of them.”

Scientists predict that the colorful bouquet will return each spring for the three-or-more years it takes the familiar coastal sage scrub to re-establish itself as the dominant plant in the area.

That process is already well underway, according to Trish Smith, a Nature Conservancy ecologist who last week completed the first installment of a five-year study documenting what she described as the “vigorous” regrowth of the scrub.

Areas that were reseeded in the wake of the devastating fire on Oct. 27 are showing some signs of regrowth as well.

Bright orange California poppies dot some of the 277 acres within city limits that were reseeded with a rich mulch designed to prevent erosion. And some new grass has been seen on the more than 3,000 acres of open space reseeded by helicopters supplied by the state.

By far the most impressive, though, has been the growth spawned by nature itself, ecologists say.

“The thing about the fire is that it allowed us to experience a natural process,” Smith said. “We’re getting a different view of the landscape that is just as natural as the shrub-covered view we’re used to and it’s quite spectacular.”

That seemed evident during a recent impromptu tour of Laguna Coast Wilderness Park by Sweet and Heath.

“It’s just astonishing,” said Heath, striding gingerly through a field strewn with splashes of white, salmon and yellow from the newly budded morning glories, sticky monkey flowers and golden stars.

“It’s like looking into a tide pool,” she said. “If you stop and relax, all the colors come into focus.”

Opened just last year, the park--except for a small portion always accessible--can ordinarily be seen only during the prearranged docent tours held several times a month. The wilderness park--on land formerly owned by the Irvine Co.--is overseen by the private Laguna Canyon Foundation, which is still raising money for the purchase of its last 189 acres.

Heath said participants in Saturday’s open house are asked to park their cars at the Act V parking lot from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. From the lot, on the west side of Laguna Canyon Road opposite the Canyon Club, they will take free shuttle buses to the entrances of four different areas of the park: Big Laguna Lake, Little Sycamore Canyon, Little Laguna Lakes and Laurel Canyon.

Heath said that the visitors, who are encouraged to bring picnic lunches, may either hike through the areas themselves or participate in organized docent-led tours. Those interested in reserving space on a shuttle, she said, should call (714) 855-PARK.

“We want people to come,” Heath said. “Coming out here will recharge their spiritual batteries.”