Thursday, November 25, 2010

Jacaranda blue

It is Jacaranda time in Fibrotown. The town is dotted with delicious swathes of blue-purple flowers, tarting up its streets with all the assurance of a touch of blue eyeshadow on an ABBA covers band. I love Jacaranda trees: huge and stringy when covered in green; beguiling when in flower. They remind me a little of Meryl Streep's portrayal of Julia Child in Julia & Julia - still a little awkward when all decked out in their finery but charismatic nonetheless.

Mr3 is entranced by them. He calls them the 'Boy Trees', liking that his team gets such a spectacular showing. He, much more than Mr6, is very aware of the 'pink is for girls, blue is for boys' rule. I think this is just because he has an older brother, as The Builder and I have never been known to spout that rule. Mr6 was never as fixed in his thoughts at three. Though his teddy bear, Bronte, a definite girl, has always had pink as her favourite colour, while his has always been green.

When I was growing up in Fibrotown (we moved here when I was in fifth grade), we had a massive Jacaranda out the front of our house. It was one of many on our street, creating an avenue effect to lead people out of the town centre and up towards the local showground. In November, our street looked beautiful. Right up until the Jacaranda trees began to interfere with the electricity lines and ended up trimmed into that bizarre reverse mohawk that this seems to entail.

Our Jacaranda survived a lot of years. Its huge roots spread and pushed up the pavement right from our driveway down to the next door's fence. The little ridges created quite an obstacle course for those of us roller-skating down the hill. In December, as the flowers began to fall, our front path became an exercise in risk management as hundreds of flowers formed a beautiful blue-purple carpet across our front lawn. A beautiful, slippery carpet. Add in a dash of summer thunderstorm and a pair of thongs and you pretty much had to skate across the top at break-neck speed, seeking the safety of the gate.

Some years ago, the council cut down our Jacaranda. Termites. They replaced it with a strippy little sapling that sat there for a long time, doing nothing, going nowhere, lucky to survive the attention of bored teenagers wandering the streets on Friday and Saturday night.

Today, I parked my car in the shade of that little tree to visit my Dad (Mum is still in hospital, but doing well - thanks everyone for your good wishes). It's still only about a quarter of the size of the old one, but it's getting there. The flowers are appearing, only this time, they're dropping on the footpath, which is as far as the spread reaches so far.

Here's hoping my boys have fond memories of that tree in years to come.

{image: freeimageslive.com}

PS: I'm flogging my blog with Lori at RRSAHM this fine Friday. Why not pop over and discover some fab new blogs?

14 comments:

  1. I love Jacaranda trees, we have to wait until May/June for them at their best but they always make me smile.

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  2. Ahhhh, lovely. Growing up in the UK,jacarandas were not a thing I could revel in. But my grandparents (here in Adelaide) lived in a street graoning with them.

    When I am sitting at my desk, if I look left out of my window, I have a jacaranda as my view - he is just coming into his own....

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  3. I have never seen one before, it is just beautiful. Your blue sky is also beautiful, extra beautiful because we are expecting snow over the weekend! Jen

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  4. I adore Jacarandas. For me, they are Nature's birthday candle. Here in the sub-tropics, they are at their blooming best for the month of October. There is a smallish one in the front yard opposite my place, and they dot this entire area. Every day of my birthday month, they make me smile in their lilac exuberance.

    When I was about 10-12, my Dad and I lived in a house in this area that had a huge and ancient one. It had lovely low sweeping branches wide enough for my young self to lie along, or prop myself against its broad trunk and stretch my legs out in front of me as I read, wrote, drew or dreamed. Bliss.

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  5. They are flowering everywhere here too and the best thing? The carpet of blue below...

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  6. Oh such a beautiful tree. I miss seeing Jacarandas in flower.

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  7. Flying back into Sydney last weekend, it was lovely to see the streets generously dotted with beautiful purple jacarandas. They're one of my favourites too.

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  8. the streets I grew up in were lined with jacarandas so this definitely brings back fond memories

    sincerely wish your boys have great memories of there tree too, it's a lovely thing to have

    Gill xo

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  9. I love what you said about Jacaranda's: "still a little awkward when all decked out in their finery but charismatic nonetheless." It's so true. They're a truly beautiful tree. I didn't know you'd lived in Fibrotown as a child. Some roots go very deep don't they?

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  10. They certainly are beautiful and quite prolific around these parts. Though I've always thought of them as being more purple than blue.

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  11. I've been able to see these gorgeous trees wherever I've lived. I love the purple carpet under each one when the flowers fall and I love the shape of the bare branches against the blue sky in winter too.
    When I lived in Brisbane in 1973-5 our yard had three of these trees and we hung a swing on one for our firstborn to play.

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  12. Our Jacarandas are just on their last blooms, my mr m...son no 2..just today swept up the dried dead blossoms from the path, cos when it rained a couple of days ago it was one mushy slippery mess. Next will come those big round seed pods and little jacarandas sprouting everywhere...then the tiny yellowed leaves will blow into the house. They are the messiest tree to park your car under or have next to the house but I love them...I just adore that particularly beautiful blue!

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  13. Thanks for the slide down memory lane, Al. x

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  14. They are such lovely trees ... I'm so glad you love them too!

    For some reason they seem to be a tree that captures memories so easily ... here's to many more years of memories and remembrances! :)

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