2017: The First Visit of the Year to The Flower Fields
2017 © K. W. Bridges For more information, please visit www.kimbridges.com
This is a brief story of a visit to The Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch®, by myself and Nancy Furumoto on March 17, 2017. All of the photos shown here were taken on this visit. Links to other ISSUU stories relating to Ranunculus asiaticus: Bright Spots in Winter Impressions of the Persian Buttercup Ranunculus variability and BRIT A link to an Exposure story about Ranunculus asiaticus: Ranunculus, Flower Fields 2013 The terms “variety” and “bulb” are used very loosely.
We go to The Flower Fields to do what everyone else does. We go there to walk alongside the rows of colorful flowers and take pictures of ourselves. But we do more, too. We’ve got three objectives on this visit: • Test a new camera (Sony RX1R M2) • Look for and photograph new varieties • Enjoy the Ranunculus This is a short visit. We’ve only got about four hours to spend in the fields. We’re also a bit weary from a red-eye flight. Let’s start with an overview. The Flower Fields occupies about 50 acres on a gentle slope facing the ocean in Carlsbad, California. This is where most of the US produced Ranunculus asiaticus are grown. Tourists visit these fields. The flowers are harvested and sold in the floral trade. Bulbs are collected and sold through retail stores to home gardeners.
Teams of workers walk through the fields and pick flowers. The bundles of flowers are kept in buckets with water.
First, a comment on the style of photos in this story. A 2016 ISSUU book, Impressions of the Persian Buttercup, was built around flower pictures that were rendered as “impressions,” rather than pixel-perfect photographs. The flower photos here were processed to resemble those in the book as part of the camera test. We’re being particularly alert to unusual varieties of Ranunculus asiaticus. Most of the field is filled with sets of nearly identical, monochrome flowers. The result is bold stripes of colors. The unusual flowers are often mixes of colors, or pastel hues that are different from the dozen colors that dominate the landscape.
It’s not just colors or mixes of colors that stand out as unusual. Floral complexity, shape and petal margins contribute to differences in varieties.
“Double flowered” is the term used when a flower has “extra” petals. The Giant Tecolote® Ranunculus were bred at The Flower Fields by Edwin Frazee. These are good examples of double flowered. Big specimens can be as large as 4 inches across.
Pink and white combine in many ways. Each combinations was given a name and sold as a variety when Ranunculus were very popular.
The second color is sometimes subtle and its pattern may be indistinct. This combination appear to be uncommon. An uncommon variety, resulting from the cross of two other varieties, is multiplied by planting the bulbs. Each bulb from the plant produces geneticallyidentical progeny. This process, long used by gardeners, works especially well for Ranunculus asiaticus. Plants can be produced from seeds, to get variability, and from bulbs, to maintain variability.
White flowers show the same floral complexity as the other colors. The Flower Fields has white flower varieties with yellow centers. This adds another dimension to Ranunculus asiaticus variability. The traditional view of flower shape (e.g., 1875) is a large bloom with numerous petals. The petals should be incurved with the largest at the outside. Petals should be broad with rounded edges. The entire bloom should be hemispherical. The petals should be open and distinct from each other. Our current view of the ideal flower shape is more liberal. We delight in both rounded flowers with many petals, as well as those that are flat.
The Easy to Grow bulb collection includes nine solid colors: • • • • • • • • •
Gold Pink Red Rose Sunset White Yellow Purple Salmon
These pastel salmon-color Ranunculus asiaticus flowers have their own beauty. Note the pollen on the petals. Ranunculus asiaticus is a wind pollinated species. As a result, you often see a lot of pollen in the flowers.
Multi-color flowers have a variety of names, according to the bulb catalogs. Flowers with combinations of red and yellow are called “café” or “flamenco.” Combinations of pink and white are variously called “picotee” or “merlot.” Picotee means that the petal is one basic color and the outer margin is another, generally contrasting, color. The color combinations can vary considerably within the definition of any of the names.
We are on the lookout for unusual color combinations. Equally interesting are the shapes, numbers and arrangements of the petals. Some of the characteristic mixes are quite rare in the fields. We’re drawn to them like a magnet.
Flowers that have a dramatic color combination grabs your attention. Sometimes it is hard to imagine that flowers with these bright, bold colors are the same species that produces white flowers. It is amazing that this one species can produce a spectrum of blooms that range from vivid, blazing primary colors to those that are subtle pastel hues.
The Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch®, the official name of the fields of Ranunculus, is open from early March to mid-May. Our visit was early in the season. None the less, we saw lots and lots of flowers. This was just our first visit of the season. We’ll go back soon. And we’ll spend more time.
We had three objectives. How did we do? We certainly had an enjoyable day. There were a lot of flowers to see even though it was early in The Flower Fields season. We spotted a lot of new varieties of Ranunculus asiaticus. That was a success, too. The new camera (Sony RX1R M2) worked very well. A potential limitation of this camera is its fixed 35 mm lens. The advantage is the huge sensor. Having 41 megapixel images allows the photos to be cropped. Previous sets of pictures (21 mpixel) rarely had enough pixels to allow cropping in a portrait orientation. This camera has huge images; portrait-oriented cropping can be done on many photos.
Thanks to … Fred Clarke and his great crew that manages The Flower Fields . Jess Williams of Mellor & Company and his team. They grow the Ranunculus. It is a complicated job that must be repeated year after year.
The Ranunculus get a big “thank you,” too. The genome has preserved an ability to display a dazzling array of colors, patterns, and shapes. It took foresighted plant-breeding pioneers great effort to tap this potential and to bring it to the public. Thanks.