We have a Westside dermatologist and Arboretum co-founder, Dr. Samuel Ayres, to thank for the thousands of Jacaranda trees in Southern California. Back in the late 1940s he encouraged early directors of the brand new Los Angeles Arboretum to go abroad and bring back trees, especially flowering trees, to plant at the Arboretum to test and see if they would grow in our climate.
Among the trees introduced: the gorgeous jacaranda tree, a native of Brazil and the Caribbean–but now planted in tropical and subtropical areas around the world. (Bits of trivia: Pretoria, South Africa is nicknamed “Jacaranda City” and Jacaranda trees have even been planted high in the mountains in Nepal.)
At some point, Jacaranda trees were planted along Del Mar Blvd. in Pasadena, lining the street for more than a mile from Arroyo Parkway to Lake Avenue. And every year they bloomed in late May or early June. This year–and I suspect it is because of the warm, dry, sunny weather we enjoyed all winter–some of the Jacaranda trees are already in bloom. But not all of them. The effect is not quite as spectacular as it has been in past years, so I decided to show photos from June 2011 and April 2015. When I took these photos this morning I also noticed that Agapanthus, a kind of lily-like plant, is coming into bloom. It usually flowers in June. It’s gotta be the drought.
(To see photos of the L.A. Arboretum, visit my Hot Gardens website.)
For comparison…
Only some of the Jacaranda trees are in bloom in April, 2015. Perhaps the others are waiting until late May. The tree on the right and the one in the center, below, both with light green leaves are Jacarandas. Jacarandas usually lose most of their leaves just before they bloom. Both these trees still have quite a few leaves.
