Wildflowers. Your Excuse To Get Outside Right Now.

Now is the time to go out looking for spring flowers in the Devil’s Lake State Park region! As you explore the forests and trails of the park and nearby natural areas, you’ll find spring flowers are popping up everywhere!

One of the wonders of nature is that there is always a new activity or event waiting for you all year round and usually it costs you nothing to enjoy. (Well, maybe a park sticker!). In spring, my two favorite activities are checking out the streams, cascades, and waterfalls of the area and of course, exploring the woods for spring flowers.

Right now, you’ll find an amazing variety of flowers blooming or just beginning to bloom. You’ll find bloodroot, hepatica, violets, trout lilies, marsh marigolds, anemone, spring beauty, mayapples, Dutchman’s breeches and more. And really, it’s not all that important to know their names, it’s just cool to get out in nature and see what you can find. What would you name them?

I always think of mayapple as the Dracula flower because right before the leaves unfold it looks to me like a vampire.

At Devil’s Lake State Park, one of the “showstoppers” is the amazing blankets of Dutchman’s breeches that cover the rocks on the right (west) side of the park’s north shore entrance road. It’s easy not to notice, but once you do it’s pretty awesome. You can expect to see them over the next week or two now. In fact, you’ll see Dutchman’s breeches almost everywhere in the park. Especially along the West Bluff and East Bluff Trails.

In wetland areas and along streams you’ll find a few unique flowers that are big on wet feet. Good locations for these flowers would be Parfrey’s Glen SNA and Baxter’s Hollow SNA. In fact, right now at Baxter’s Hollow the forest floor is covered in trout lilies that are just about to bloom and marsh marigolds fill the wetlands and the banks of otter creek. In fact, we also discovered our first trillium of the year out in the hollow.

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#OptOutside

Ultimately, getting outside is the important thing. We know it’s good for us and good for our kids. Often we just don’t know what to do when we’re out there. Over time, once you start picking up on natures events calendar, it gets a lot easier to find activities. In fact, sometimes, there’s just too much to see and do. Spring is one of those time here in the Baraboo Hills. Do you go waterfalling? Do you go check out the pelicans, swans, cranes and other birds during the annual migration? Do you go out hunting down wildflowers? Or are you just happy to be out hiking the trails or riding your bike after a long cold winter?? So much to do, so little time. Whatever you choose, have fun, be safe and if you’re out in the woods, well, watch where you walk! ;)