By Andrea Sachs
The Washington Post
ENNIS, Texas — After a long winter, the official “bluebonnet city of Texas” throws a hero’s welcome for the state flower.
Bluebonnets typically start to bloom in March and creep north, peaking this month. The spring ritual draws thousands of people to this small town south of Dallas, where bluebonnets take over the streets and shops, fields and parks. Here, visitors meander along the miles-long Bluebonnet Trails, stock up on bluebonnet souvenirs and sip bluebonnet-inspired drinks — until the bluebonnets vanish, sometime around Mother’s Day.
Much like with Washington’s cherry blossoms, the season’s brevity doesn’t discourage flower seekers.
More than 90,000 people make their way to Ennis every April, according to Ashley Colunga, the city’s community engagement director. In addition to more than 40 miles of bluebonnet trails, Ennis holds a three-day festival (this year, April 11-13) with live music, vendors, a beer garden and carnival rides.
“You have people come from all over, and this is a very rare plant to them,” said Kacie Tiner, a resident who owns the Thistle + Sage floral shop, “but it’s an extremely invasive weed. It is gorgeous. But, yeah, it’s a weed.”
Some locals say tourists jam up the roads, especially when they suddenly pull off to snap photos or frolic among the wildflowers. One year, a group set up a picnic outside the front gate of Pashia Blalock’s home in nearby Bristol. Her father was driving a trailer full of cows, she said, but the guests refused to move, suggesting they come back later.
“We love the bluebonnets and do not mow them,” said Blalock, co-owner of Cactus Rae Designs in Ennis. “But it has gotten more crowded each year and very congested.”
For safety reasons, the town urges visitors to take photos only in the parks; the trail map highlights five natural spaces. Guests should also respect the landowners along the route and not tread on private property.
“When you see a field of bluebonnets, don’t go into it, because it could be someone’s pasture,” said Clarissa Smith, a receptionist at the welcome center.
Some people trample the flowers in their quest for the perfect picture, Smith noted. But, she added, “we usually have so many bluebonnets, it won’t affect the look of it.”
More popular than cacti
Lupinus covers Texas like a floral quilt, with six species that are native to Texas popping up from Big Bend to Texas Hill Country to North Texas. In 1901, the Texas legislature decided it needed a state flower, according to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The chapter of the Colonial Dames in Texas lobbied for the bluebonnet, which beat out the cotton boll and the cactus.
In March of that year, Texas inducted Lupinus subcarnosus as the state flower. Seventy years later, it amended the law to include Lupinus texensis “and any other variety of bluebonnet not heretofore recorded.”
Some destinations, such as Ennis, closely identify with the omnipresent plant, turning the wildflower into a mascot of sorts.
Around town, banners displaying a floret or “Get Wild” slogan hang from lampposts. The trash bins are decorated with folk art flowers. Stores brighten their windows with painted fields of bluebonnets. A mural stretching half a block depicts cattle grazing or lazing about in pastures dotted with the lupines.
The welcome center and shops carry a smattering of bluebonnet souvenirs year-round but bulk up for blooming season. Many of the 25 or so sellers at the Village Vendor Mall showcase the flowers, putting them on T-shirts, mugs, tea towels and note cards. The local Buc-ee’s gas station features a bluebonnet section, a stipulation the city made with the Texas-based company, according to Haley Burnett, tourism manager for Ennis.
This month, bubble tea shop Prickly Boba plans to bring back Bluebonnet Lemonade, which is not actually flavored with bluebonnet. (It’s not an edible flower.) At Fern in the Wild, diners can order a Bluebonnet Bramble cocktail with a side of advice: A staffer recommended the bluebonnets at the Meadow View Nature Area at sunset.
“To be part of Ennis is to have that bluebonnet spirit in you,” said Tiner, the flower shop owner. “Bluebonnets represent us.”
In the waning days of March, the welcome center was ready for the crowds. It had stacks of trail maps, racks of souvenirs and a “Where in the World?” poster cleared of last spring’s thicket of stickers.
Ennis’ bluebonnet history
Ennis’ romance with the bluebonnet officially dates back to 1938, when it debuted the Bluebonnet Trail in Kachina Prairie Park. In 1951, the Ennis Garden Club created an early iteration of the Ennis Bluebonnet Trails Festival, selling crocheted items and sandwiches outside the public library. In 1981, the Texas legislature bestowed the central Burnet and Llano counties with the title of “bluebonnet co-capitals of Texas.”
However, Texas is so big and its bluebonnets are so bountiful, lawmakers granted a similar designation to Ennis in 1997.
Out-of-towners the welcome center throughout the year, asking the same three questions: Are the bluebonnets blooming? Where? And when is the best time to visit?
“Some people call once a week for updates,” Smith said.
Like all of Mother Nature’s spectacles, curtain time is TBD.
Larry Stein, a professor at Texas A&M’s AgriLife Blackland Research & Extension Center, said bluebonnets need rain in the fall and winter for seed germination and plant growth. This year has been dry. Cold snaps and temperature spikes also affect the flowers.
“The bloom is [more] sparse than it should be,” Stein said.
Bluebonnets, however, are resilient and tough. They prefer “disturbed” environments, said Andrea DeLong-Amaya, director of horticulture at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. They can thrive in soil stirred up by a natural disaster, such as a tornado, flood or wildfire, or by such ordinary human activities as construction or mowing.
“That’s one reason why you see a lot of bluebonnets on the roadsides,” she said, “because those are essentially disturbed sites.”
To help visitors locate the blooms, welcome center employees dole out trail maps and viewing tips. In addition to their own observations, they receive weekly reports from garden club who drive the routes, a floral recon mission.
Last week, Burnett, the tourism manager, received an important text from the garden club’s president: a bluebonnet sighting at Rotary Park.
Wading in bluebonnets
At the welcome center, Smith handed me a map with several routes she had highlighted in yellow. To make sure I didn’t get lost, she provided explicit directions involving a Texaco station.
Days before the expected arrival of crowds, I drove to Rotary Park, where kids played basketball in the heavy rain and a solitary man walked laps along the path. From the parking lot, I noticed a purplish patch that resembled a boysenberry jam spill. I squished in the soggy grass until I was ankle-deep in bluebonnets.
En route to Veterans Memorial Park, I ed scores of bluebonnets by the PNC Bank and along Route 287. Paying heed to the city’s picture-taking protocols, I lowered my window for a drive-by view of the flowers, sticking my nose out for a whiff of their sweet scent.
In Texas, picking bluebonnets on public land is legal. Proper etiquette dictates that visitors should look but not pluck.
“I’m not going to say that picking a bluebonnet is going to ruin the world, but be respectful and realize that any plants that get destroyed are not going to be there to provide pollen for pollinators, or for the next group of people to enjoy, or for those plants to reproduce and make new seed that will then carry on the generation for the following year,” said DeLong-Amaya, the horticulturist.
Instead of jeopardizing those bluebonnets, you can go to the Walmart in Ennis and buy a plant. (Check the agricultural rules before transporting a plant across state lines.) The welcome center sells packets of bluebonnet seeds, and Tiner buys 50-pound bags of seed that she packages in blue-topped vials.
“I try to have them in stock throughout the year,” Tiner said, “but this is the most important time for us.”
When I visited the Meadow View Nature Area, pockets of bluebonnets appeared on the edges of the grassy expanse before exploding into blue waves of flowers cascading down to Bardwell Lake.
A sign warned about snakes, fire ants and wildlife, and it reminded visitors to check their surroundings before stepping into the grass. Fortunately, the bluebonnets were close enough to the gravel pathway that I didn’t have to risk a bite for a close-up of the best little weed in Texas.
