Ahhh, Memory Lane....isn't it great? Thanks for sharing.

I could have written your post, except I don't remember the pink flowers. The yellow ones, I believe, are mustard. We played freely in the neighborhood, explored a vacant lot, even found a horned toad once. Probably none of those left in neighborhoods now, but we do have a lot of lizards. We dug a long winding trench in the garden and made a "river" with the garden hose running. We burned our trash in an incinerator in the back yard. We helped our mother mow the too tall lawn with a push mower in the heat of summer, then collapsed in the cool grass to recover.

Beautiful Lisa... what a joy to see and bring back so many memories for you... what a pity it's a fire risk though... I wonder if those yellow flowers might be the same plants grown for Rapeseed Oil that we have over here... there are many fields around me full of these yellow flowers right now.. a pretty sight indeed... we call them oil seed rape fields... they seed everywhere though, along road verges and in our gardens too... so I presume those are seeded from fields nearby?... of course it might be something totally different..

oh, I've just seen socks post and they're mustard … well, they do look like rape so forgive me for that..

I didn’t think this posted. It wasn’t here a few minutes ago, and I thought it was lost. Wonderful!

Socks, we always called the yellow ones ‘Mustard flowers‘, too. I just wasn’t sure if we had made that up, or if that’s what they really are called. We used to see ”horny toads” too! We always wanted to see them squirt blood from their eye at something, but we never did see them do that. It might very well have been one of those old wives tales, but I should look it up to see where we got that idea from. I haven’t thought of “horny toads” in years! They were so flat and well camouflaged, they looked just like rocks until you looked closely. Thanks for stirring up that memory.

I’m glad you enjoyed seeing our So CA weeds, Marlorena. I’d love to see what flowering weeds you have over there. Every area has its own flowering weeds, and sometimes they look like something I wish would grow in my garden! Some “weeds” are beautiful! Really they’re wildflowers, if they’re native.

I took a few pictures of the more common colors that the plant in the last photo shows. That peachy/yellow one was unusual. They are more commonly seen in white or purplish pink. Lisa

Lisa, your weeds are so pretty! I love the mixture of colors. All we have are the yellow mustard weeds; our place is covered with them. The rains have made the stems much thicker than in previous years and it's going to be difficult to weed whack them, but it has to be done because of the fire danger. Weeds seem to grow so much more vigorously than anything else, but I must admit that this spring everything in the garden looks very lusty too. I'm sure the same must be true with yours.

marlorena, rape is a mustard so you got it right. Our mustard is actually a non-native European so it could be the same. Lisa, I love your post. It brought me back as well. I remember going to secret places with my mom to collect berries and cut Lilacs for the house. When I went back a few years ago the Lilac area (NJ) was all condos. So depressing. It was more depressing however, when visiting our old neighborhood in NY. The old horse farm where everyone boarded their horses was now a housing development and the dirt road leading to it was paved. I remember running barefoot on that road and always bringing something for the horses to eat, and like you, looking out the kitchen window to watch them at play. I feel badly for kids who'll never have these experiences which while not in "wild" areas, introduced us to a more natural environment. Oh well. A bard owl flew directly in front of me as I got out of my car last night so I can't really complain.

My family lived in S CA when I was about 8 to 18. There were lots of fields and vacant lots full of tall grass and flowers. My friends and I would make tunnels through them. Kids in the neighborhood played outside most of the time. We'd play Kick the Can or Sneak Through the Neighborhood. We'd go buy a steak for a dollar or so, grill it in the backyard and camp out with sleeping bags.

There was a canyon full of rocks nearby and we'd pack a lunch and hike through the canyon. We named some of the rocks after characters in Huckleberry Finn, and we'd always sing Red River Valley in a certain spot with red rocks.

Sometimes if the hills of grass were dry we'd slide down them on a piece of cardboard. My middle school was next to the ocean. We swam in the ocean a lot and explored tide pools. I remember one of the wildflowers was a short growing blue lupine.

Thanks, everyone! Ingrid, thankfully I don’t have the mustard pants in my yard. I can imagine how hard they must be to pull up! I have enough yellow weeds with my super bloom of Oxalis this year. They come up every spring, but with all the rain, they’ve exploded this year. I’ve never before had so many slugs as now, either. I’m going through Sluggo Plus by the pounds! The climb up my containers at night, and eat my baby seedlings. I didn’t realize how much slugs like annual phlox. I had started a flat of the gorgeous ‘Cherry Caramel‘ Phlox from seed during the winter, and transplanted them in various places in the garden. I have almost nothing left, in spite of my hand picking them at night and loads of Sluggo Plus. It’s a pity, after all the work I put into them. The slugs must actually smell the tiny phlox seedlings, because they head straight up the containers that include phlox seedlings. I had such beautiful visions of ‘Cherry Caramel‘ phlox spilling out from under my new ‘Augusta Louise’ rose. Oh well. As Vap said, I can’t really complain. It’s small potatoes in the big scheme.

Jin, that’s righ. I had completely forgotten about you living in CA before! I know what you mean about not being sure what to pull, and what to leave. The grass has been setting seed like crazy, plus the extra rain made lots of extra weed seeds germinate. I’ve thrown a lot of flower seeds around over the years, and now things are coming up that I don’t recognize. It’s always so hard to decide; weed or something I sowed a while back? Lots of flowers DO start off looking exactly like grass(Orlaya, comes to mind), so I’m having that same problem, Jin. I bet we’re giving tender loving care to at least a few weeds that are tricking us. It happens to me at least once every year.

Vap, I feel the same way about kids growing up in big cities. At least there are parks, campgrounds, and playgrounds around, but it’s not quite the same as having loads of wild space to explore. I’m thankful I was able to raise my kids on the dairy for as long as I did. The land was used for a much needed high school, but my kids got to live on the farm for the first years of their childhoods. The older two got 13 and 14 years of time there, and I’m grateful.

Marlorena, do those “weeds“ remind you of Dame’s Rocket at all? I’ve never seen Dame’s Rocket in real life, only online, but they reminded me of it a little.

BTW Socks, Horny Toads really CAN squirt blood from their eyes! I would love to see that! Lisa

Lisa... no not really... Dame's Rocket flowers are quite tight along the single stem, not loose like those... I think those wild flowers are Wild Radish 'Raphanus sativus'.. not native to California but everywhere apparently... see what you think of this suggestion..

The mustard is pretty! They are actually really easy to pull out now, while the soil is moist. Later in heat not so much. They don't weed wack very well because it mangles them. I love fields of weeds. We played outside when I was a child and I had a ball out there.

Beautiful flowers in their natural setting, thanks for the pics, Lisa. There was a huge empty space next to where I grew in DC, where all sorts of wonderful woodland and prairie plants flowered... buttercups, spring beauty, jack in the pulpit. Mmemories of youth stay with us forever, don’t they?

Yes, the yellow flower is rape, the seed of which is also used to make canola oil. I have a friend who grew up under the Cultural Revolution in China, and now reside in NorCal. Under the hardship years, a good part of their diet consisted of edible weeds that as a young girl she gathered for her family. Even now, where others see a field of weeds, she sees a banquet...I’ve enjoyed learning about all sorts of edibles from her.

I remember fields of those when I was growing up in Northern California also. I always called them wild radishes because when I grew radishes they had the same leaves and flowers. Thanks for the memories.

The mustard will dry during the summer and be a fire hazard, but the yellow hillsides sure are pretty when it’s blooming.

Mustard, not a native plant, is ubiquitous in California. It was brought here when the Spaniards were colonizing the area. It's a problem on the hills not just because of it being a fire hazard, but because it crowds out native species.

I still see the mustard around here and there, but not the other. I think it could very well be the wild radish. Although I didn’t see any seed pods on those particular flowers, I remember what the seed pods looked like. They indeed look like when I‘be let a radish bolt to seed in the vegetable garden. When I looked up the wild radish, it’s definitely the same plant. It must not be as invasive as the mustard, because it’s not seen as often around here any more. It’s pretty, but I wasn’t tempted to take any home to my garden! Thanks for the ID!

I’m especially impressed that Marlorena would be the first to identify them both, all the way from England! Thanks to everyone else for confirming it. I wish they were native. It would have made me feel better about that field. Nevertheless, seeing that field brought back some wonderful memories. Lisa

Re Mustard: lgteacher(SCal zone 9b/10a) " . . . a problem on the hills not just because of it being a fire hazard, but because it crowds out native species."

Not many native species left on my local hills, Teacher. Too much drought. Too much fire.

I mourn the things that are gone. Particularly the ceanothus.

Right now there's grass. And we got Opuntia -- both thorny and thornless. But there are areas where the opuntia even burned.

The wild mustard reminds me of my childhood when there were many more open spaces in the SF Valley. We also had wild radishes, fox tails, and some type of wild oats. A special treat was sweet alyssum than had naturalized in open spaces.

When I lived in the chaparral the wild mustard had to be weeded before a tough stalk formed otherwise it was brutal removing the plants, Plus clay soil didn't help.

This post brings back memories. I spent many years of my childhood in the Los Angeles area, and my favorite memories are of the roses in my Grandmother's garden, the beaches of the Pacific ocean, fruit trees in the back yard and Disneyland, (especially the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, I still love that ride!).

I recall the fields with grass and flowers. I used to enjoy walking outside during the winter rains.

Irvine area looked like that in the 1970s.

I wonder what southern California was like in the 1930's and 40's. From the descriptions I've read in books, that was a wonderful time if you were a well-to-do person who could afford a large car and chauffeur, and could have a beautiful home in the many relatively unspoiled areas, among orange orchards and farm fields, areas that are now almost completely buried under concrete freeways and housing tracts. Overpopulation and industrialization have destroyed so much of the natural beauty in landscapes all over the world, while at the same time guaranteeing us, in this country, so many of the luxuries that we unthinkingly view as everyday necessities.

JeriJen, we still have lots of ceanothus in the hills above my house in Deukmejian Wilderness park. It was all burned by the Station Fire in 2009. Since then a crew of weeding volunteers, myself included, take out invasive species monthly. Here’s the ceanothus in its full glory this spring.

Krista, my husband was born in Alaska but his grandparents lived in San Clemente. He spent part of summer with them and went to Disneyland a LOT. Pirates is still his favorite ride too!

The ceanothus is beautiful! I don’t see too much of it left in my immediate area, but it still thrives on a few hillsides. I believe Ingrid’s are still has it. The hills covered with them are indeed a gorgeous site. From a distance, the whole hill looks a smokey Gray/blue.

Surprisingly, the weed field above hasn’t been cut down yet. I suspect our cool, damp weather has the firemen a little slower to put up the notices asking the owner to cut them down.

I always loved that ride, too! My very first time was when I was 3. I hid in terror behind my parents. It scared me to death. I was well over that, the next time I went. “It’s a Small World”, was one we always had to see, as well. Lisa

Pirates of the Caribbean is awesome, I love those little waterfall drops. There's no way I will go on a rollercoaster like Matterhorn, but Pirates is fine. The front of the boat is the place to sit to get splashed with water! Oursteelers, perhaps your husband has been splashed on this ride as well...

It's a Small World is a wonderful ride, as well, and Peter Pan's Flight.

I need a vacation right about now...

Ingrid, my father and uncle grew up near Pasadena, and they used to reminisce about the large orange groves. They liked the trees, and the fruit.

Wildflowers, what a great OT subject! Some of my favorites are the blue columbines in CO. I wish I had photos of bluebonnets from my TX childhood. Many stretches of open green spaces had been crowded out by construction and sprawl by the time I came along, but some still persevered, especially in the hill country. My parents used to reminisce about the fields of wildflowers surrounding Dallas. Oregon has lupines, too, and a wonderful place to experience them is on Mt. Hood. I'll see if I have photos somewhere. Fireweed blooms burst onto the scene in later summer, and they're always filled with bees and other pollinators. Carol

That’s right, they aren’t “weeds”, they’re wildflowers. Strange coincidence: DH just put an app on his phone that is supposed to ID any plant, if you take a picture of it. The two of us walked out today to a little wild area close to our house and saw not only the invasive mustard, but native purple sage, California buckwheat, blooming cactus (deep magenta flowers), mariposa lily, tree privets, primroses .. all in a very natural setting. This spring has been amazing.

As for the app, it flings put a lot of absurd suggestions, but if it gets him interested in flowers ...:)