Jacarandas and Bougainvillea. Look at Me! Look at Me!

Australian streets are awash with the magnicient purple-blue blooms of jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia) in late spring and early summer. 

Jacarandas work well on their own as a specimen tree in an open lawn, where their fallen flowers form a colourful carpet of blue, as well as being superb street trees, 

I took this pic yesterday at Roseville NSW. What caught my eye was the contrast with the Bougainvillea lit up by the early morning light, right behind this tree.

Australians think of jacarandas as natives, but they’re not. Natives to Brazil, they are deciduous, not because of cold winters, but because of the monsoonal wet and dry seasons. 

They briefly drop their leaves at the end of the dry season, then leaf up again when the rains come.

Jacarandahs can reach a height of around 10-15m, and a spread of the same size, so you need to be careful where you plant them.  A jacaranda is a magnificent shade tree.

While the most common flower colour for jacarandas is the lovely purple-blue, there is a white-flowered form called ‘White Christmas’.