Many of us have wondered what kind of wildflower season we will see in this extreme dry year. Some early blooming flowers were even earlier than other years, and were looking good. The mountain ball cactus had beautiful flowers a few weeks ago. Pasqueflowers are the early bird bloomers; there were hundreds blooming in April, while usually they would be blooming in May. Stonecrop grows in dry, rocky locations and they are blooming prolifically right now. The hummingbird’s favorite flower, scarlet gilia, grows in dry locations and is blooming well right now.

The evening primrose is happily blooming right now. The plant family is Willowherb, and another close relative in this plant family includes the fireweed with bright pink flowers that we see blooming later in the summer. The evening primrose plant has a very similar looking large four petaled flower shape to fireweed. However, the fireweed grows on tall stalks with many leaves. The evening primrose is flat on the ground with four large white petals. The beautiful evening primrose is a native perennial that grows in dry locations. I have seen them every year on dry slopes near my home. They are reliably blooming again this year. This plant has a tiny, short stem looking like it is flat on the ground. It thrives in dry habitats throughout western North America, and has a long tap root that probably gives it the ability to survive various conditions. The four large petals — up to 2.5 inches long make it very eye-catching.  The fireweed is known for coming in prolifically after a fire, hence the name. It is a beautiful native plant, not a “weed”.  I saw it in action growing up very thick on the Buffalo Mountain Trail after the Buffalo Fire in 2018. I think it is somehow very tough in dry conditions, and will be blooming well this year. I have seen the leafy stems growing well this year, and we will likely see many blooms later.

Other flowers are not looking very happy this year! The arrowleaf balsamroot with bright yellow sunflowers are usually filling open meadows this time of year, and they are looking sad, dried up and just not blooming anything like normal. There are just a few big flowers blooming where there are normally hundreds filling sunny meadows with their large yellow sunflowers. Another beautiful sunflower is the heartleaf arnica that grows in forested places. We would usually see many of them blooming. Their heart-shaped leaves are out, but not many yellow flowers are blooming, and some of the heart leaves are looking sad.

There are many spectacular wetland area flowers that are very exciting to see, like bog orchids, fairy slipper orchids and coralroot. They are not blooming this year in some of their regular wet locations. 

It will be interesting to see how the wildflower season continues this dry year. Most perennial plants have amazing abilities to survive through variable conditions, but this year is extreme. 

The plants that have the overwhelming abilities to survive in any condition and push out our native species, are the noxious weeds. We can hope they might have to struggle this year, but that is unlikely. The noxious weeds take over native habitat because they are so capable of adapting to conditions. This is an important year to join our annual community weed pull scheduled for July 11. Meet at the Community and Sr Center in Frisco at 8 a.m. for breakfast and weed talks, then go to your choice spot to pull weeds. Sign-up will be on the Friends of the Dillon Ranger District website soon.

Karn Stiegelmeier is a volunteer wilderness ranger and board member of Eagle Summit Wilderness Alliance.