San Diego residents can help the city pick a new official flower this spring by participating in an online bracket challenge modeled on the March Madness basketball tournament.
City leaders say it’s time to replace the non-native carnation as the official city flower after 60 years. The goal is to encourage residents to cultivate native flowers because they help local bees, birds and butterflies.
Council President Joe LaCava defended the city’s focus on something so relatively unimportant compared to closing a $258 million deficit that is expected to require substantial budget cuts.
He explained that the vast majority of the effort is being handled by the San Diego Bird Alliance, the new name for the local Audubon Society since last July.
“To those who may be wondering why this and why now: While my council colleagues and I recognize the tough times we’re facing, it never hurts to stop and smell the flowers,” LaCava said Wednesday during a meeting of the council’s Rules Committee.
The bird alliance has narrowed the choice down to 40 native flowers and hopes to have a of 18 local experts shrink that to eight for the bracket challenge.
The flower that survives that challenge is scheduled to be presented to the City Council in late April to potentially be selected as San Diego’s new official flower.
Native flowers help native wildlife by providing food, nesting materials, shelter and protection from predators, the alliance said.
Persuading more people to plant native flowers will boost San Diego’s regional identity, minimize water use, reduce landscape costs and promote eco-tourism, said Hailey Matthews of the Bird Alliance.
“We think this amendment is pivotal in the city’s commitment to its native flora,” Matthews told the Rules Committee. “San Diego is the most biologically rich county in the contiguous U.S., so we have lots of options to work with.”
The carnation was chosen by the City Council in 1964 in a secret ballot election over the rose and the poinsettia.
San Diego’s official native tree is the Torrey pine. The city’s official urban tree is the jacaranda.
