How Carlsbad keeps 80 million flowers blooming
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The ranunculus waves. Photos: Courtesy of The Flower Fields
The Carlsbad Ranch's Flower Fields open Sunday with 80 million blooms, but the work to get them ready hasn't stopped since last Mother's Day.
Why it matters: A team of about 20 works to keep the fields blooming each spring, supporting this major attraction that draws 300,000 visitors from across the country.
Catch up quick: The ranch is a working farm that now covers about 55 acres — the size of 42 football fields — and it's ready for its annual color explosion.
- Giant Tecolote Ranunculus are the main attraction.
- But the ranch also has orchids, sunflowers, blueberries and olives.
How it works: After the fields close on Mother's Day, the ranch allows the flowers to die.
- Then they harvest the bulbs and sell them across the country, Taylor Moss, the marketing and operations manager, tells Axios.
- Next, they plow the fields and dig beds in late summer, followed by the planting of ranunculus seeds late in the year.
- Then they help the new flowers grow.
Fun fact: The ranch plants seeds, not bulbs, which is much harder to do, Moss says.
- But that allows them to choose only seeds from the best-performing flowers to repopulate the entire farm.
State of play: They plant fields in a wave, starting in the north and adding more seeds every two weeks as they move south.
- "That allows the flowers to bloom first in the north and then slowly grow to the south over the 10 weeks that we're open," Moss says. "Because if we planted them all at once, then we'd only be open for a couple weeks, and that wouldn't be very fun."
The intrigue: Despite their careful cultivation, there's sometimes a rogue flower that pops up as a different color from the rest of its row, Moss said.
- That's because ranunculus are pollinated by the wind, not by birds or insects.
- "So technically, if we had an extremely windy day that got a white seed into the yellow, then you might have a white flower bloom in the yellow," Moss says.
Yes, but: Guests love these verdant rulebreakers, Moss says.
Other parts of the ranch include orchids, a sweet pea maze, butterfly gardens, blueberry picking on Mondays and Tuesdays, plus weekend live music and yoga sessions.
If you go: Opening day is Sunday.
- 5704 Paseo del Norte, Carlsbad
- 9am-6pm
