Marcia and I visit the Carlsbad Flower Fields

Marcia and I wanted to do something we hadn't ever done. She was out of school for Easter break, so we decided to spend a day celebrating our birthday's. So we decided to go up to Carlsbad and see the Flower Fields. Been there for years and we had never visited them, saw them from the freeway but that was all. We drove up the back way, visited a little new Mall that had just opened. Drove down a little further and found a road to Bing Crosby Estates, we drove down in there expecting to see some of the movie stars rich homes. We did see some across the hills, but they had a closed gate, you had to have a number to proceed further. So we turned around and came back up the road. We drove into Rancheo Santa Fe, and little rich movie star town, the whole town area is about 2 blocks of stores. Beautiful place, lot of rich home in that location. We drove on to Carlsbad. We missed the turn off to the Flower Fields, and ended up going to the Tourist Information area, in the old Carlsbad train depot, picture below. That was a lucky break, cause they gave us a coupon, that got us into the Flower fields for half price. We only had to pay $5.00 instead of $10. While there the train came whizzing by at 100 miles an hour, it about blew us away. The picture above, shows what the fields look like from an air plane.





















Some of the gardens before getting to the flower fields.
















Next door is this Windmill, I remember visiting years ago, it
was a restaurants, and curio shop. We use to be able to see it
from the freeway, but now you can't.




















Here I am ready to start our walk to the Flower Fields of Carlsbad. Before you get to the fields they have an area of All American Rose Selection, it covers nearly a quarter of an acre, its the walk of fame more than 170 past winning rose selections since 1940 are on display. Each year a rose is selected from the rose breeders, each rose has a name.















Here Marcia is set for the beginning of our walk around to see these beautiful fields of flowers. Where we came in, there were gardens of all kinds of flowers, there was a sweet pea Maze, it was pretty fragrant labyrinth that led us through walls of blooming sweet peas. We also walked through a greenhouse of poinsettias. At Christmas time a lot of them are shipped from here.
















These fields were started back in 1921. By Luther Ludlow Gage, he came out to California from his home in Colorado. He started his own nursery in Montebello, Calif. Where he produced flowers until 1917 Standard Oil Co. struck oil, and caused growers southward for land. So he made his move to Carlsbad in 1921. He was 44 and had never married, and he met and fell in love with Olive who was 35, they were never to have any children, but they were Uncle and Aunt to all the neighborhood children. He Luther was very active in Carlsbad politics.















They had Mexican worker out cutting the buds for sale. They open March 1 and stay open till Mothers day in May. They send these flowers all over the world.















The flower fields are located on 55 acres of rolling farm ground, I took this picture of the tractor driven wagon ride for viewing the fields. They charged extra to ride on it, but we came to do some walking, so that's what we did. They had those wagons going around with a load every five or ten minutes. It's a popular place.
















I got up on a little hill and took this picture of Marcia,you can see the ocean in the for distant. Along with the colorful panorama of the ranunculus flowers at the fields, we also saw spreads of specialty flowers such as oxalis, sparaxis, babiana and watsonia, Most of these plants are grown from bulbs and are native to South Africa.





















We wondered why we saw no bee's around to collect honey, but found out that they have no fragrance and count on the wind for pollination. Because they lack nectar they do not attract pollinating insects.
















These flowers are Ranunculus popular for their unique blossoms. Its a member of the buttercup family and is native to Asia Minor Persian Buttercup. They refer moist soil, tolerate sunny areas. The best out door climate range is 40 to 80 degree. They plant the seeds in September. If you look closelyyou will notice the plant has three types of foliage. The bottome leaves look a bit like strawberry plant leaves, then in the middle the leaves look like celery, and at the very top, close to the blossom the foliage resembles parsley leaves.
















One of the overseer there told us to walk down to the end here
and look back you could see how the fields kinda run into each
other and makes it look like squares. Click on the picture it will
enlarge so you can get the effect.
















Here is another view kinda like the one above.
















The flowers are so beautiful it takes your breath away.
















Marcia drove up above the fields at the end of our time there, and I took this picture. It happens to be right next door to LegoLand. You can also see the ocean in the distant.
















We had to hurry from Carlsbad through heavy traffic to get to her therapy appointment, here is Jay her therapy Dr. She was there for about an hour. I went in with her and took some pictures. She hurt her thumb last December cutting a limb off a tree and it fell and hit her thumb. Some ligaments were bruised, so it gave her alot of pain.
















After a full day of walking around the flower fields, and Marcia taking therapy, we were pretty hungry, so we stopped at Olive Garden on our way home and got something to eat.