Wikimedia Commons / PKM

California Wild Rose (Rosa Californica) can survive drought conditions but thrives in moist soil close to water.

Wild Rose, a California native, is in bloom in San Diego County’s foothills and mountains. In moist, lowland areas and along small watercourses, wild rose shows off small, fluorescent-pink flowers. By June and July, the rose bloom will reach the Laguna Mountains, where the plant grows in abundance in shady locales.

Desert cottontails are most active early morning, evenings, and nights. During the day they like to stay cool in shady shrubs or burrows.

Wikimedia Commons / James M. Maley

Rabbit and Rodent population is peaking in the canyons and hillsides of coastal San Diego County. In many neighborhoods, car headlights illuminate the rear ends of scampering cottontail rabbits making raids on succulent garden vegetation. On the fringes of suburbia, sleek coyotes are sometimes spotted slinking about in pursuit of rodents and rabbits, or easier-to-catch fare — house cats.

Because Oleander are heat, drought, and salt tolerant they do well in most San Diego climates.

Pexels / photoGraph

Oleander bushes, now beginning to bloom in gardens and along roadsides in the interior valleys and desert, will continue putting on a good show through the summer. Displays of white, pink, and red varieties can be seen along the medians of Interstate 8 in east El Cajon and along Interstates 5 and 15 in parts of North County. Oleander’s toxic characteristics are well-known: all parts of it are poisonous if ingested.

While Garter snakes are not poisonous their saliva contains toxins that cause redness and swelling at the bite.

Pexels / Thomas Shockey

Snakes, encouraged by recent warm temperatures, have already emerged from burrows and rock crevices to hunt for prey throughout the county’s lower-elevation hillsides and canyons. Gopher snakes, garter snakes, king snakes, rosy boas (all harmless), and three varieties of rattlesnakes— red diamond, speckled, and Southern Pacific (all venomous)— have been sighted. Close encounters with rattlesnakes are not uncommon wherever residential properties abut undeveloped land— a common situation throughout San Diego County.