Think purple, not palms

June 2, 2017 11:48 AM

Julia Wick, LAist: The Story Behind Los Angeles' Beautiful, Ephemeral Jacaranda Blooms: Like many things intrinsic to the city, jacarandas are not actually native to Los Angeles. The trees are indigenous to South America, originally found in the tropical and subtropical regions of Argentina and Brazil ~ In 1944, a scholar visiting from Chicago described “the immense clusters of violet blue flowers” in a scientific journal, explaining that an illustration of a Jacaranda mimosifolia flower on the facing page was “made from specimens collected in the environs of Los Angeles where this tree is widely grown for its beauty.” ~ Have you ever heard a more L.A. thing? One can only imagine what those weary midwesterners must have thought of us, we Californians, who grew things just for their beauty. It's not just about looks, though. Curbed LA's Alissa Walker thinks Jacarandas are LA’s future.

Not everyone is a fan:
Jacarandas: You either love them or hate them (Shelby Grad, LA Times)
My jacaranda tree is a lot like my boyfriends - Beautiful, sticky, messy and annoying (Marla Jo Fisher, OC Register)

Jacarandas around the world:
Jacaranda Festival, Grafton, New South Wales
Buenos Aires
Pretoria
Southern California

Jacaranda Bonsai

posted by Room 641-A (41 comments total)

Yep, here for the love/hate More Inside. I have one, I love it in many ways, I love the smell and the color.

It is at the back corner of the yard, and its enormous canopy (well...I'm sure it was at one time) sprawls over three other yards, and then the Santa Anas come and break its enormous canopy off into those yards, and then I have to get the landlord involved for remediation. I would NOT want one of those trees over my house or car, or over powerlines, and what's left of mine is so large that it will require advanced arboration to get it down when it comes time to take it down.

Also, that carpet of flowers that is making my back yard purple and fragrant? Every flower has a bee in it. My yard is covered in beeeees. The elementary school down the street has a huge one over the playground and I assume they just send someone out with a leaf blower 2-3 times a day to keep it safe to let the kids out.

But still, they are beautiful, and I'd still probably prefer that the bastard who developed this neighborhood had planted one of those in every front yard rather than the Bradford "Jizz Tree" Pear.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:06 PM on June 2, 2017 [12 favorites]

Never ever ever ever ever

park your car under one of these during flowering season.

They are lovely, though! And the older I get, the happier I am to see all those pollinators out and about.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:10 PM on June 2, 2017

I am to see all those pollinators out and about

That's what bee said.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:21 PM on June 2, 2017 [8 favorites]

Ah! Ah! Bradford Pear! That's what it's called! Lyn, you have solved a mystery that has haunted my mind and my nostrils for over 20 years.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:22 PM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Ah, the jacaranda and the Bradford pear (also called the Linden Tree "Do you smell cum?"). Two of my favorite L.A. stories. I have both in my yards.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:27 PM on June 2, 2017 [6 favorites]

I just spent the weekend in LA, and the blooming Jacaranda's are magnificent! They almost make LA beautiful...
posted by nikoniko at 12:28 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

If we could also replace the eucalyptus trees all over Orange County, that would also be great. There are so many choices better suited for urban environments, and yet we go with the watertable-guzzliest, bark-and-leaf-droppiest monstrosities on earth. I love Jacarandas, with their purple mess.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 12:32 PM on June 2, 2017

I do not care for much of anything about Southern California, but these trees were in bloom when I was in San Diego last week, and they are really beautiful. Was very glad I got to see them.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:37 PM on June 2, 2017

Lake Merritt here in Oakland is ringed with jacaranda and horse chestnuts (and oaks, of course) and they're so beautiful when they're in bloom. Thanks for posting this!
posted by Lexica at 12:45 PM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

I do love the look of jacarandas, although parking underneath them is a downside. However, I don't see jacarandas being the ideal tree for sidewalk planting, they have surface roots and tend to damage sidewalks. Not as bad as some other trees, but not great.
posted by JauntyFedora at 12:52 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

The crepe myrtles are getting cranked up here in Texas and will bloom continuously through autumn. There are dozens and dozens of them planted around our apartments. These, combined with our indigenous mountain laurel, can be quite dazzling...
posted by jim in austin at 12:53 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Echoing the comments - beautiful trees, but such a mess. But still.. that color is amazing when you get a whole army of them (Also hate Linden trees with a passion and this time of year is hell for me because I'm allergic to the Jasmine planted as ground cover every other house in my neighborhood. )
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:54 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

I was just in Lisbon which was awash in Jacaranda trees blooming right now. So beautiful, particularly from a far distance where parts of the landscape have lovely soft violet puddles.
posted by Nelson at 12:55 PM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

Not everyone is a fan indeed. I associate the purple blossoms with insomnia and anxiety; in Australia they bloom during final exams.
posted by adept256 at 1:03 PM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

I had a jacaranda in the yard when I lived in Santa Monica. It was a towering, amazing tree, and it was victim to the drought. It stopped blooming, then it stopped sprouting leaves, then the branches began to snap off in the Santa Anas. I helped cut it down to the stump. It was ridden with bugs. If we'd stayed, I would have planted a new one. I probably wouldn't have gotten to enjoy its shade, but what the hell. Jacarandas are better than palm trees. I am one million percent Team Eff Palm Trees. The giant, swaying palms that lined 4th Street may have looked nice, but they provided no shade and dropped gigantic fronds on the unwary. At least the jacarandas have a cooling canopy.

Of course, now I'm in Seattle and have to deal with blackberries. Jebus.
posted by RakDaddy at 1:26 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thank you for this! I think I've grown a little too used to their beauty, taking it for granted. The street my first elementary school was on had a whole line of them along the sidewalk, and they just became an expected part of the landscape for me. They do truly look and smell lovely, mess aside.
posted by yasaman at 1:40 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

I love jacaranda season. The last bit of my drive home is through a stretch of Fairfax with jacarandas on both sides of the street, so you're driving through a purple canopy, and it always makes me smile. The other thing I love about jacarandas is that my daughter would call them "jacalarandas" when she was little.
posted by mogget at 1:54 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

There are also large numbers of Jacarandas in Brisbane, Australia, and they are enjoyed early October every year as the city turns purple. Except by university students. They hate them. It is part of student lore in Brisbane that when the Jacarandas bloom it is time to knuckle down, stop partying, and start studying hard for final exams. Many still feel their blood pressure rise slightly at the first hint of purple years after the have left university.
posted by drnick at 2:13 PM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

I... lived in L.A. for six years and I'm honestly don't remember ever noticing a single jacaranda tree. None in our neighborhood, I guess, and maybe just bad luck with my various commute routes. I feel like I missed out, especially after watching the Huell Howser clip in the linked laist.com article... the man was so infectiously ebullient about everything in L.A. (and California in general.)

My favorite seasonal event was always the blooming of the night jasmine, though. There is nothing like it.
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 2:17 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Flying over Guyana the jungle canopy was the usual mishmash of green impenetrable broccoli-- but every so often there would be this purple explosion like something from Pandora. I grew up in California and jacaranda trees were around, but it was so neat to see them "in the wild" like that.
posted by The otter lady at 2:20 PM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

love/love.
I posted an image of fallen jacaranda blooms to instagram just yesterday. during golden hour the trees are so beautiful they almost bring me to tears.
posted by changeling at 2:22 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

I hadn't heard of Kate Sessions before, thank you for that. Balboa park has been sadly neglected in modern times but there are all kinds of amazing plants to be found there.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:23 PM on June 2, 2017

That Huell Howser clip reminded me that when I was having lunch with friends last weekend we accidentally invented the Huell Howser Casino in Vegas and I am sad all over again that it doesn't exist.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:25 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Great post and the video that Sophie1 linked was hysterical. Thanks you guys!
posted by WalkerWestridge at 2:45 PM on June 2, 2017

Jacarandas do okay here in the warmer parts of the Bay Area. The leaves and blooms make great compost, and the trees themselves are nitrogen fixers.
posted by oneirodynia at 3:12 PM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

All the MeFi Angelinos are out!
I love these trees so much! I didn't used to, but only because I had to park underneath one for years. Now that I park under a camphor tree, I can appreciate the color they add to a typically earth-toned LA.
posted by bluejayway at 3:32 PM on June 2, 2017

They are all on in the central valley. It is funny there are a lot of vintage plants in the old neighborhood where I live. I know some of them came up from Mexico with immigrants. This town is full of vintage plants I have never seen before, and giant bougainvilla, things I can't name, bushes that look like woody petunias, chest high. This is an amazing environment. There are two story high mimosas, and magnolias. Love the jacarandas, I have been waiting for them.
posted by Oyéah at 4:12 PM on June 2, 2017

Have you ever heard a more L.A. thing? One can only imagine what those weary midwesterners must have thought of us, we Californians, who grew things just for their beauty.

The hell was that drive-by pot shot? Like we don't plant flowers here? They must picture the Midwest like the opening of the Wizard of Oz; we're all dressed in drab muslin, no colors other than brown dirt and yellow corn.

"I seen a flower in a book once. It was red!
"Shut up, Cletus; God don't make red flowers 'cept in Heav'n!"
posted by leotrotsky at 4:17 PM on June 2, 2017 [12 favorites]

Our yard has several jacarandas, and I hate them.

They are great for three weeks of the year, sure. The rest of the year, they suck.

Being basically overgrown shrubs, the wood has the strength of poor quality styrofoam, so they constantly drop branches. The cover they provide is scrappy and anemic at the best of times. They lose their leaves, not in winter when you actually want some bloody sun - BUT IN SUMMER WHEN YOU WANT SOME SHADE.

The leaves are tiny and will fill up your gutters with an overwhelming generosity that penetrates any cover you can think of.

If you trim a branch off, like a hydra three more will take its place, spreading furher over your roof.

I hate em!
posted by smoke at 6:35 PM on June 2, 2017

Jacarandas are great climbing trees. When they are not wet.
posted by tgyg at 6:36 PM on June 2, 2017

Bluejayway! I live on a street lined with camphor trees! When we bought the house, I thought maybe I could make my own camphor but apparently that's really dangerous...oh well.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:52 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

My father(who with my uncle owns Artisans Patio on hollywood bl) got very upset when they wanted to replace the ficus trees with jacarandas 20 odd years ago.
posted by brujita at 7:57 PM on June 2, 2017

Oh, when I was little my grandmother's house had one, and it was tremendous fun to get all sticky.

LA Mefites! I will be back in LA next Wednesday for our honeymoon. Can anyone warrant a guess as to whether the bloom will last that long, and suggestions on where to find some good ones in or around Santa Monica / West LA?
posted by skookumsaurus rex at 8:19 PM on June 2, 2017

Oh, they'll definitely still be around. This is peak season.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:44 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Now I know what the purple tree I saw today is!
posted by tavella at 8:48 PM on June 2, 2017

Reminds me to check on the Jacaranda that grows a block from our place, in Berkeley. They are stunning!

Another very common one around here is the Prickly Paperbark Tree, planted by the city in the 50s - right low they're covered in white little flowers and look like giant cauliflowers. Can't decide what to think of them...hardy but weird.
posted by The Toad at 8:50 PM on June 2, 2017

A feature of San Jose as well; I love the temporary covering they leave underneath; reminds me of a dusting of purple snow. Also driving along LA freeways and looking out at this lavender mist overlay, every year starting around Memorial Day - the herald of Summer.
posted by Rash at 9:47 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

where to find some good ones in or around Santa Monica / West LA?

Congratulations! They are definitely blooming on the Third Street Promenade.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:28 PM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

Yeah, they seem to be pretty common in a lot of west L.A. neighborhoods. Though I have mixed feelings about them. The look pretty when you're looking up. Looking down, it's often a hellacious mess. Thinking about it, obnoxious trees are really common to line streets around here. On my block, they're bottle brush trees. In the 17 years I've lived here, a handful have disappeared under mysterious circumstances, something virtually impossible to accomplish officially due to my town's heavy hand in street dressing. Even so, I think I'd prefer bottle brush to jacaranda.
posted by 2N2222 at 2:39 AM on June 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

The hummingbird, he has no song.
From flower to flower he hums along
Among the jacaranda trees.
He finds no words for what he sees.
-- Michael Flanders
posted by darksasami at 3:02 AM on June 3, 2017 [6 favorites]

skookumsaurus rex, i used to live on Midvale and Venice in west LA. That neighborhood (north of Venice, from Overland to Sepulveda, to National) has a lot of jacarandas.
posted by holyrood at 12:43 AM on June 4, 2017 [1 favorite]