Wildflower Fields of Magic, Beauty + Fairies

Happy May Day everyone! I felt it quite fitting to post Fritz Haeg's living art piece :  

Wildflowering LA 

It's Haeg's native wildflower seed sowing initiative that is both beautifying our neighborhoods and stoking out the birds and the bees (and us admirers too)! If you live in Los Angeles, please take a moment to visit one of his 50 sites. You will be so happy that you did and how please take the young ones with you too (how nice that it's free)! It's incredibly well planned and the site is easy to ready and to navigate. If you don't live in Los Angeles, then here is a little glimpse from five different sites that I visited with Elijah a few weeks back. We made an end-of-the-day date out of it! I looked to see which ones were in proximity to one another so that we could hit up a bunch in one outing, and then looked at the color codes on the site 's map to see which of the ones I selected were blooming. We ended up in the Mt. Washington / Eagle Rock area driving around with my scribbled map of addresses and cameras in hand. It truly made for a spectacular date and felt like a wildflower hunt! We were stoked every time we spotted the brown Wildflowerng LA signs and felt accomplished that we got to see all five that we set out to view. It also made me realize how much beauty we have here in California that is native, and why not use that for our lawns and gardens? Even if you only make it to one, I know that you will be so happy that you did. Happy magical wildflower hunting!

Please let me know which site(s) you have visited and share with me what you saw!

*some of the wildflowers you see above are purple lupine, yellow tidy tips, orange california poppies, pink clarksias + purple lacy phacelia to name a few

Wildflowering LA

Artist Fritz Haeg (big fan of his) is setting up site-specific lots of every shape and form and is sowing tons and tons of native wildflower seeds for all to enjoy come spring 2014 all throughout Los Angeles County! The work is commissioned and produced by the Los Angles Nomadic Division (LAND) with guidance, consultation and inspiration stemming from the Theodore Payne Foundation. Isn't this just one of the best artist initiatives ever?! I'm so super excited about this. Do you have access to at least 500 sq. ft of land that could use a native California wildflower field? It's not too late to email him to inquire as I believe he is still looking for more sites : 

wildfloweringla@nomadicdivision.org

"Age-defying thirsty landscapes of clipped evergreen shrubbery and lawns cover this city that supposedly has no seasons, no sense of time, combined with a denial of death and aging. However, the story of the native wildflowers of Los Angeles is more complex, nuanced, localized, and ever-changing. Long-anticipated early winter rains germinate seeds that have been lying in wait, buried in dry soils from the low coasts to the high deserts, from the valley flats to the mountain slopes. Gradual growth with cool temperatures and low sun through winter months give way to an early spring explosion of bright green and rainbow color. The story of the seasons is told by the timing and extent of the bloom in direct proportion to the rainfall, temperatures, and climate. The plants turn a crisp golden brown as the dry summer months return, and the flowers prepare to broadcast their seeds for next year's story." -Fritz Haeg

Just think what spring in Los Angeles will look like with all these fields of wildflowers prettifying all of our glorious nooks and not always noticed crannies! Hooray for you Fritz + LAND!!  So exciting!