Starting in late October, the bare dry branches of these giant trees suddenly – in a matter of days indeed – dress themselves in eye-piercing and delicately fragrant purple florets. Somewhen in mid-November the bloom withers as quickly as it has appeared, the fallen florets spread a lilac carpet on the ground, with a sprout of new green leaves replacing them. Besides the spectacular blooming season which steals the attention from all other plants, the life of the jacaranda trees during the rest of the year is quite decent.
Provided that most of the jacarandas around (including the one in our garden) seem to be of similar age, I would tell that many years ago in Sydney metropolitan – and in Australia in general – it must have been fashionable to plant and grow this specific tree species.
According to some sources, once upon a time – around year 1870 – the Australian sailors used to bring these lilac trees from South America (and mostly Brasil) as a gift for their Dulcineas. Apparently in those years some men were still very romantic and some people still cherished life and wanted to leave a beautiful trail after themselves, even if it’s a purple flowering twig.
Another urban legend says that around 1940s there was a midwife in Sydney who would send every new mother home with a jacaranda seedling for longevity and luck, thus starting what will later become a spring purple rain allover the city. I have no idea whether this story is true or not but I love it.
While researching the history of the Brazilian – Australian flora, I came across photos of fairytale-like streets drowning in all shades of lilac and just before dismissing them as being photoshopped, I realised they are actually 15min away from where we live and went to see for myself. Nothing was photoshopped and the trees were as purple as it gets but to the horror of the ordinary residents, these streets were literally invaded and blocked by tourists who would do the impossible to get the perfect shot.
They block the parkings and the lanes while posing, walking, smiling, swirling, kissing, jumping and occasionally sitting on the ground for their elaborate photo sessions which ultimately makes it impossible for someone to capture just the trees. After 10 minutes in this mayhem I reinstated my belief that mass gatherings are not for me and we retreated to the car.
Diving deeper in the internet I learned that even though the jacarandas are well established everywhere in Australia, there is one place where they are not only more but even have their own festival – the municipality of Grafton NSW.
In 1879 the Grafton City Council had hired a seeds merchant named H. A. Volkers to do some landscaping and for reasons unknown, he planted hundreds of jacarandas. 
Somewhat 50 years later – on 29.10.1935 – the first Jacaranda Festival took place in the city, becoming more and more purple and popular since then.
The number of jacarandas in Grafton nowadays is estimated to about 2000 and the display they put on each spring (which means October/November in Australia) attracts thousands of locals and visitors from allover the world. Or had attracted, until a global pandemic of ignorance and fear happened and paralysed everything.
For 85 years in a row the first week of November has transformed Grafton into a whirlpool of tourists, markets, live music, food stalls, paper garlands and lilac ice cream, surmounted by annual ceremony of crowning a Jacaranda Queen, but nothing of the kind took place in 2020.
In the year of cancel culture and forbidden joy the jacarandas were still there and still in full bloom but the purple township was empty, half of the businesses were closed and the long floral avenues on this sunny Sunday were all occupied by a wandering group of 2 adults and 2 teens, a bunch of young friends with backpacks and maps, and a single lady with an umbrella. For the kind gentleman whose family owns one of the picturesque ice-creameries in Grafton this certainly was not a good day but for us it was magic.
Walking those empty lavender streets with no cars and no crowds was eerie and exhilarating at one and the same time. We felt pity for the cancelled Festival and for Grafton which largely rely on the annual albeit short-lived Jacaranda tourism but this once-in-a-lifetime chance to have the whole purple paradise for us only made us incredibly happy, not going to lie….
♾
