When does beach strawberry bloom in California?

Most often in March. Across 399 dated, research-grade observations of Fragaria chiloensis in California, the flowering season runs roughly February to May.

Peak March In flower 399 Examined 489 State California

Flowering 399 in flower of 489 examined

71%

91%

100%

94%

88%

35%

11%

60%

29%

40%

70%

Proportion of examined Fragaria chiloensis in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	20	28	71%	53% to 85%
Feb	32	35	91%	78% to 97%
Mar	78	78	100%	95% to 100%
Apr	105	112	94%	88% to 97%
May	121	138	88%	81% to 92%
Jun	15	43	35%	22% to 50%
Jul	1	9	11%	2% to 44%
Aug	6	10	60%	31% to 83%
Sep	2	7	29%	8% to 64%
Oct	3	4	too few examined
Nov	2	5	40%	12% to 77%
Dec	14	20	70%	48% to 85%

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Fragaria chiloensis in California 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. 399 of 489 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. 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 California found Fragaria chiloensis in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in California, 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

Fragaria chiloensis

beach strawberry

Sourcesevery claim on this page

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