June gloom has socked in SoCal pretty well. We get drizzle and cold temps, and occasionally the sun breaks through by late afternoon. But it's the first two weeks in June, and what does that mean to me? Jacaranda time. Those beautiful, albeit messy, trees that are everywhere, with a shock of purple where green leaves once were.
They're from South America, and there honestly seem to be more each year--in new shopping centers and in front of people's homes. We have two of them, and they are truly the reason I bought my home. They must have been planted when the house was built, which makes them old enough to collect social security by now. The entire front yard is carpetted in purple flowers right now. From certain areas, you can see our trees blocks away. Our next door neighbor has a smaller one that confettis our driveway. I have climbing rose vines, but the pink flowers can't hold a candle to the jacarandas.
The purple sprouts out over the rest of the canopy (not like SoCal has THAT many trees, anyway), but its always so dramatic. Drive down some streets, and it's a virtual sea of purple blossoms. Sepulveda has blocks of them, and we were on Parthenia and there was a block of the trees that had to be 30 or 40 feet high.
The only sad part this year is that the trees are blooming alone. My son and I always called them Laker trees because they seemed to bloom as the Lakers would win the playoffs.
Posted by Angel Zobel-Rodriguez at June 11, 2003 11:43 AM