Anyone driving around town at the moment couldn’t help but admire the beautiful sight of the many mature Jacaranda trees in full spectacular bloom.
If you are about early enough to see the purple carpet of blossoms dropped on the roadside before the traffic drives over them, you will enjoy a special delight for the senses.
While we would all know of the well publicised and long running Jacaranda festival in Grafton NSW that occurs each year in early November.
This festival started in 1934 and the trees were planted during the 1880’s by the council.
A Grafton seed merchant, Mr. H.A.Volkers, was contacted by the council on July 2 1879 and during the next decade, was responsible for planting the many beautiful trees in streets in the town.
What I was unaware off was the number of festivals in Queensland and other states.
We have a Jacaranda festivals at Goodna, Goombungee and Fig Tree Pocket and even right up on the Atherton tablelands at Herberton, to name just a few that I found.
In N.S.W. they have others also with another one happening in Camden in early October.
They had thirty-nine, 90 year old trees and planted another 8 mature trees in 2017 in Argyle Street.
W.A. has a festival at Applecross and while I couldn’t find anything specific to Tasmania, S.A. or Victoria I know that jacarandas grow and bloom spectacularly in those states as well.
They truly are a beautiful tree and while I know a number of people who don’t like the dropped blossoms and the “mess” they make I personally love everything about them and think they are well worth it.
The same people probably don’t like the dropped blossoms or leaves from frangipanni and kurrajong trees either, or the carpets of autumn leaves from assorted deciduous trees.. liquid ambers trees to mention one.
My favourite brother and some other family members fit this category!
Another beautiful sight around town at the moment also are the many Melaleucas that are in full bloom.
I have never seen them looking better with a cloud of soft white balls of fluff covering them.
There are over 300 hundred different varieties of this tree commonly known as tea trees, honey myrtles or paperbarks depending on where you grew up!
Tea trees to me on the central coast of N.S.W. and the most I remember of them is the very dark, pungent, strong flavoured, honey a friends bees used to harvest from them.. oh how I disliked that honey!
They come in many different colours and recently I saw a beautiful pale mauve variety in profusion on the roadside out near Mendooran in N.S.W.
I was delighted during the week to find that my yellow and pink arum lilies are flowering.
I have always loved the common white arums and am very happy to see my coloured ones going so well with such little care as they have had this year.
They are the ones with the spotted leaves so are particularly appealing.
There is a variety called “green goddess” that has a green tip to the white flowers that I have seen many times over the years. It’s on my wish list for next year!
So many beautiful things in flower in gardens at the moment it really is a delight and a distraction to drive around looking.
There are a lot of beautiful Duranta repens, “Geisha girl”, flowering well in gardens.
Grevilleas are still going well as are many different colours of bottle brush.
Where I grew up November was the time for gladiolus and I have seen a Number looking wonderful in gardens.
Along the roadside, as I went to Stanthorpe at the weekend, I was again thrilled with the profusion of bright yellow cosmos on the verges and in paddocks. They provide such a joyous, happy sight, guaranteed to lift your spirits and bring a smile to the dial!!
I am thankful that we have not had the amount of rain and the resulting devastation that other parts of the country are experiencing and my heart and prayers go out to all those affected.
Family on the Darling river below Bourke are watching as the river rises and hoping that the levee around the house is not breached.
They have had to be boating in and out for some weeks now to be able to continue operating the property as the water rises and stock become stranded.
There is no doubt that we are, as Dorothea MacKellar put it so eloquently, a country of “droughts and flooding rains” but even so, I agree with her that it is this “wide brown land for me”!
