Magical Transformation

There’s something magical happening at my house. It’s not hidden under cover of night or anything like that, it’s actually quite obvious. Really….don’t ponder and wonder…drive by, you’ll see! My world has been transformed just like Merlin himself swooped in to help out. My Jacaranda tree is in bloom. It’s as though Matisse stops by every morning on his way to work. The intense purple flowers make me so happy it’s positively ridiculous. I read in the LA Times that they are often called “purple people pleasers.” I revel in their iridescent amethyst haze, never minding for a split second that the spent blooms get tracked in to every room in the house, on to the floor of my car, and seem to get stuck in my hair on a regular basis. Who cares? I feel as though I spend the other ten and a half months of the year anticipating this glorious event. I suppose there are other seasons in Southern California beside Jacaranda Season. Perhaps, but they are so difficult to justify. Autumn comes around, generally with a heat wave over 100 degrees right about when the kids head back to school. And then shortly after that, there’s that “winter” thing where it rains for a couple of days and people forget how to drive. UGGS become standard preferred footwear for a month or two, and people burn fires in their fireplaces for a few weeks. Of course, there is always the infamous 100 days of summer, it’s hard to forget about that in a beach town. Here in Seal Beach that pretty much means you can’t find a parking spot on Main Street for three months, but there’s a lot of music in the air to make up for it. After accounting for all the seasonal variations of Southern California, (or lack thereof), nothing, absolutely nothing beats Jacaranda Season, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. The past few months have been quite noisy on my front porch. Hummingbirds love Jacaranda blossoms, and when the tree isn’t blooming to their liking, they buzz the front door and scold me relentlessly. I’ve tried telling them that the timing of the tree is outside my scope of influence, but apparently they have other belief systems in place. I’ve tried referring them to the swallows that are busy building nests in my eaves, but I suspect the two sects don’t communicate terribly well. I’ve been so enchanted by this tree that I did a little bit of research. I found that the Jacaranda is native to tropical and subtropical regions of the world. It’s particularly prolific in Argentina, and has been transplanted into Asia and throughout South America. One woman gets credit for the Dr. Seuss-like trees that herald the summer months to come. Katherine Olivia “Kate” Sessions, a horticulturist best known as the landscape architect of San Diego’s Balboa Park, brought jacarandas to the Los Angeles area in the early part of the 20th century. I’d like to say, “Thanks, Kate, you brought pure happiness to my world.”