When does Oregon grape bloom in Oregon?

Most often in April. Across 417 dated, research-grade observations of Berberis aquifolium in Oregon, the flowering season runs roughly April.

Peak April In flower 417 Examined 945 State Oregon

Flowering 417 in flower of 945 examined

Proportion of examined Berberis aquifolium in Oregon in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 2 47 4% 1% to 14%
Feb 12 66 18% 11% to 29%
Mar 102 187 55% 47% to 62%
Apr 263 303 87% 83% to 90%
May 34 82 41% 31% to 52%
Jun 4 67 6% 2% to 14%
Jul 0 57 0% 0% to 6%
Aug 0 32 0% 0% to 11%
Sep 0 26 0% 0% to 13%
Oct 0 25 0% 0% to 13%
Nov 0 20 0% 0% to 16%
Dec 0 33 0% 0% to 10%

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Berberis aquifolium in Oregon observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 417 of 945 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.wt38fd.

What this is, and what it is not

This is a record of when people in Oregon found Berberis aquifolium in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Oregon, so it is not the species’ global average dragged onto a map: the same plant flowers on different dates in different places, and that is the entire point of the page.

It will not tell you what your particular plant will do this year. Bloom time moves with the season, with altitude, and with the weather, and a warm February pulls everything forward. We publish the distribution and the sample size, and we refuse to draw a month that too few people examined.

The plant

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in Oregon. Every record achieved iNaturalist quality grade Research, which is applied upstream at export. 10.15468/dl.wt38fd. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
  2. World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.