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Next spring parts of downtown San Antonio will have something that it perhaps has never had: Bluebonnets.
“It is not necessarily common to find bluebonnets in the urban core or in downtown San Antonio," said Centro San Antonio's Trish DeBerry, but you will be able to find them this spring, and we started planting in Travis Park and along the River Walk,” DeBerry said.
In other words, when San Antonians look to take their yearly photos in a field of flowers, they may not have to drive elsewhere to see them.
“For families looking to take pictures in the spring with bluebonnets, they don't necessarily have to go to the Hill Country, but they can actually come into downtown and to find bluebonnets in an urban environment,” she said.
“I think it will be somewhat surprising, but also welcoming from not just a beautification network, but just the photography element, too," said DeBerry.
Texas tradition all but demands that you take your children, or grandchildren to the Hill Country for bluebonnet pictures.
By next spring you may be able to take them to the River Walk for your pictures rather than the Hill Country.
As quintessentially Texan as the Alamo and River Walk are, those same places with bluebonnets growing in the spring makes those scenes even more incredible.
DeBerry said Texans’ fascination with roadside flowers has a lot to do with a program Lady Bird Johnson spearheaded — flower seeding programs along our roadsides.
“I think the beauty of the bluebonnet is not just the history associated with Lady Bird Johnson and what she was able to inspire, but it just makes you happy to be able to walk across the blue line, because it's kind of like 'hope springs eternal,'” DeBerry said. “I feel like a bluebonnet really makes hope do the same thing.”
The peak season for the bluebonnets is mid-April in the Hill Country area and nearby parts of Texas.
There are basically two ways to grow bluebonnets: seed them in fall or winter. The other method is simply buying established bluebonnet plants, then planting them where they will grow.
Bluebonnets are also known as lupine. Some lupines are perennials. But Texas bluebonnets are considered annuals. They germinate in the fall, grow in the winter, and flower in the spring. That means they go from seed to flower to seed. They might be taken to be perennial because we see them pop up every spring. But that is because of the process of self-seeding, which means new bluebonnets grow from hard seeds in the same spaces where last year's bluebonnets grew and went to seed. In any event, we'll see them again each spring.
“Once you've planted the bluebonnet, they continue to grow every spring," said DeBerry. "So my hope would be that what we're doing right now in very limited capacity in downtown will inspire something bigger and better every year."
