AUSTIN (KXAN) — March typically means the beginning of wildflower season here in Central Texas.

The forecast for this year’s wildflower season is good!

“There’ll be more flowers, more abundance and if we get prolonged rain into the later part of the spring, it’ll carry those flowers on a little bit longer,” said Andrea DeLong-Amaya, Director of Horticulture at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in South Austin.

She looked at several factors when reaching her forecast for an “above average” wildflower season for 2023.

According to DeLong-Amaya we had “good fall rain, when a lot of the wildflowers are starting to germinate, the seedlings are starting to come up and then we had a good average rainfall over the course of the fall and winter, which keeps those little seedlings sustained.”

Even factors you wouldn’t expect to help flowers bloom this spring might do just that.

The summer drought of 2022 caused plants to die, which may open up more space for the annual flowers during the spring.

Some bluebonnets are already starting to pop in certain areas, but not others.

“That heat from the city and from the highways is going to make a little microclimate that’ll make things warmer and bloom earlier,” added DeLong-Amaya when explaining why some bluebonnets are rising from the earth already.

The warmth we had in February should give us a good bluebonnet bloom within the next two weeks as we head toward the peak bloom in early April. Other species are starting to flower like the Mexican plums and mountain laurels.

Wildflower season, as a whole, wraps up by late May as the summer heat kicks in.

Just remember, as the bluebonnets start to pop up, be careful if you’re pulling over to the side of the road and watch out for snakes and fire ants!