PURPLE REIGN
Lots of people get excited about the so-called New Zealand Christmas tree, the pohutukawa and, while it’s nice enough, it’s not my favourite summer bloomer. Mine is the jacaranda, and I don’t think anything can match it for elegance, intensity and sheer brilliance.
I’m not exactly sure how we came by our jacaranda, and when we got it I must not have known what it was, because I planted it away down the driveway beside the garden shed. Hardly a fitting location for something so splendid.
Now that it has finally stopped raining on a daily basis in the Far North and the idea of summer feels like a reality, I’m keen to plant another one in the middle of our main lawn. Once it’s grown it’ll spread out and provide a shady place to sit, and drop its carpet of blue/ purple leaves on the lawn without creating a nuisance.
I wandered down to have a closer look at it this morning, because it has lots of yellowing leaves, but that’s normal for the jacaranda in late spring. They can be ambivalent as to whether they're evergreen or deciduous even in the Far North, so even if there’s leaf fall, it’s nothing to worry about. They're native to Brazil, where they're deciduous not because of cold winters but due to the monsoonal wet and dry seasons. They briefly drop their leaves at the end of the dry season and then leaf up again when the rains come. Climate change must have them mightily confused.
These trees are sun bunnies and need several hours of sunlight every day to be happy. Me too. And they want to be warm, so plant on a sunny site in fast-draining, loamy soil. For the best results, water the tree thoroughly in its container the night before planting, and plant early in the day while it's still cool and moist. Put the tree in the centre of the hole, fill with soil and make sure the trunk is about three centimetres clear of the surrounding soil. Build a soil berm about 10cm high around the perimeter of the planting hole and fill with water. (The berm idea is a good one for many plants, as it holds the water around the tree until it sinks in. Mulch with fine, free draining mulch to a depth of about 50mm while the soil is moist. Jacaranda will grow from seed, so when I noticed ours had seed pods I got excited about the idea of growing some from seed. But if you want to ensure a particular flower colour, and quick flowering, grafted plants are safer. Seed-grown plants can be variable in their flower colours and less-than-generous in their flower production, which you’ll likely only find out once you’ve invested years getting them established.
However, I’m still going to grow a few from seed because it’s easy. All you have to do is fill trays with quality seedraising mix, lightly cover seeds with the mix and keep moist. They germinate quite easily, and, hey, what do I care if the colours are a bit different?
The jacaranda is a small tree and will reach about 10 metres or so in height and the same in diameter, but The Landscaper would deem that quite large, so I’ll have to keep him away from it with the loppers. Pruning a jacaranda is a punishable offence — well, if not, it should be, because it'll likely ruin the tree's natural umbrella shape for ever. It’ll pay you back by sending up heaps of vertical shoots from the pruning sites and look ridiculous.
Just don’t plant them in a tight space or where they’ll block sun or view. And most definitely don’t plant them alongside a pool.
My neighbour has a superb jacaranda but he gets very grumpy when it drops its flowers in his pool. There's no pleasing some people. I mean, how lucky can you be to have a jacaranda AND a pool?