San Diego's native vegetation has an unfortunate reputation. Most people picture local plants as brown, dead, and unattractive. It is true that many local plants have adapted to the region's intense summer heat and dry atmosphere by losing their leaves and waiting for winter and spring rains before blooming once more. Much of the stream's ecosystem was hibernating by last October when I first visited the river. Now, in April, the creek bed and surrounding park spaces have shed all stereotypes and become vibrant and green and filled with wildflowers. Pictured below is the entrance to the Mission Valley Preserve in the heart of the city, in October.

The next image was taken from the same position as above but in the month of April. The native plants are now green and everything is blooming.

A few steps further: this verdant nook forms a much needed natural break between a busy boulevard, a tram line, a freeway and a parking lot. 

Not all of the plants reawakening in the creek bed this spring are native. Among its many efforts, the San Diego River Park Foundation is working hard to remove non-native species from the river, such as the orange Nasturtium blooming in the picture below. Doing so makes space for local plants, many of which are rare or even critically endangered, to take root once more.