The jacarandas are blooming! Do you know the person who is credited with popularizing them in California?
The jacaranda trees have started to bloom across Southern California. Here’s a short history of these lavender-hued flower explosions that some love and some hate.
The jacaranda trees are blooming.
Currently, it’s hard to drive anywhere in Southern California and not spot these towering explosions of lavender haze. Like many of our ostentatious plant life, these trees are not from here.
Jacarandas are originally from Argentina and Brazil but have thrived in Southern California’s Mediterranean climate. Kate Sessions, a San Diego nursery owner and plant enthusiast from the turn of the 20th century is credited with importing this divisive tree. According to the San Diego Natural History Museum, Sessions is said to have popularized not only the jacaranda, but also the poinsettia, orchid tree, bougainvillea and birds of paradise, to name just a few now-ubiquitous plants of the Southland. Fittingly, the bronze Historical Landmark that commemorates her life and influence, placed where she operated one of her nurseries, is shaded by a jacaranda tree.
To many, jacaranda blooms signal the start of summer. When they flower depends on current temps but usually, it’s around May or June. The flowers gently fall to the ground and coat sidewalks, lawns and automobiles, but it’s not the flower’s fault it becomes a sticky mess — according to this 2008 L.A. Times article, it’s actually aphid “waste” not sap that causes them to become one with your car. Back in 2000, more than two dozen jacarandas were ordered chopped down in Yorba Linda after residents complained that the flowers littered patios and clogged spa filters. Must be nice …
How do you feel about these purple wonders? Let me know in the comments below.
Currently, it’s hard to drive anywhere in Southern California and not spot these towering explosions of lavender haze. Like many of our ostentatious plant life, these trees are not from here.
Jacarandas are originally from Argentina and Brazil but have thrived in Southern California’s Mediterranean climate. Kate Sessions, a San Diego nursery owner and plant enthusiast from the turn of the 20th century is credited with importing this divisive tree. According to the San Diego Natural History Museum, Sessions is said to have popularized not only the jacaranda, but also the poinsettia, orchid tree, bougainvillea and birds of paradise, to name just a few now-ubiquitous plants of the Southland. Fittingly, the bronze Historical Landmark that commemorates her life and influence, placed where she operated one of her nurseries, is shaded by a jacaranda tree.
To many, jacaranda blooms signal the start of summer. When they flower depends on current temps but usually, it’s around May or June. The flowers gently fall to the ground and coat sidewalks, lawns and automobiles, but it’s not the flower’s fault it becomes a sticky mess — according to this 2008 L.A. Times article, it’s actually aphid “waste” not sap that causes them to become one with your car. Back in 2000, more than two dozen jacarandas were ordered chopped down in Yorba Linda after residents complained that the flowers littered patios and clogged spa filters. Must be nice …
How do you feel about these purple wonders? Let me know in the comments below.
