Okay, this is your father, born and bred in LA, writing to set the record straight. I was the one who said Coyne, not your mother, because I LIVED on Coyne for two years when I was in grade school. Coyne was, and still is as far as I know, lined with jacarandas. Your grandmother - and almost everyone else in the neighborhood - loved the jacarandas. Except for the grouch down the street who hated cleaning up their seed pods which were an immense source of fun activities for us kids. There is even a picture (somewhere) of me sitting on top of the Coyne and Saltair street sign with jacaranda branches in view. I believe the discussion (your parents are never arguing, only passionately discussing) was happily resolved in that parts of Pico also had, and may still have, jacarandas. (Certs is a breath mint! Certs is a candy mint! Stop, you’re both right!) Like date palms, jacarandas were very widely planted around the city. The jacarandas are most certainly one of the many beautiful flora of Los Angeles that mark the change of seasons in LA that are at best under appreciated and more typically unnoticed by transplants from harsher climates - like New York, Portland, Oregon, and Palm Sorings - because the change in weather is more subtle. These neglected and ignored flora encompass a wide variety Including a wide range of succulents with truly remarkable blooms as well as many varieties of deciduous trees, such as maples, sycamores, and eucalyptuses, whose green leaves unfurl in the spring and turn color and fall during the season so appropriately named fall. Of course, many of these plants are transplants like the humans. The only difference is the plants have the good sense to adapt and enjoy the climate. They even encourage disgruntled transplants to “feel the joy” with their display of natural beauty through the year as the seasons change. Like the purple trees...
Gorgeous -- the words, and the pictures. My favorite line: "Isn’t it crazy how we spend our days surrounded by beauty we can’t name? "
Okay, this is your father, born and bred in LA, writing to set the record straight. I was the one who said Coyne, not your mother, because I LIVED on Coyne for two years when I was in grade school. Coyne was, and still is as far as I know, lined with jacarandas. Your grandmother - and almost everyone else in the neighborhood - loved the jacarandas. Except for the grouch down the street who hated cleaning up their seed pods which were an immense source of fun activities for us kids. There is even a picture (somewhere) of me sitting on top of the Coyne and Saltair street sign with jacaranda branches in view. I believe the discussion (your parents are never arguing, only passionately discussing) was happily resolved in that parts of Pico also had, and may still have, jacarandas. (Certs is a breath mint! Certs is a candy mint! Stop, you’re both right!) Like date palms, jacarandas were very widely planted around the city. The jacarandas are most certainly one of the many beautiful flora of Los Angeles that mark the change of seasons in LA that are at best under appreciated and more typically unnoticed by transplants from harsher climates - like New York, Portland, Oregon, and Palm Sorings - because the change in weather is more subtle. These neglected and ignored flora encompass a wide variety Including a wide range of succulents with truly remarkable blooms as well as many varieties of deciduous trees, such as maples, sycamores, and eucalyptuses, whose green leaves unfurl in the spring and turn color and fall during the season so appropriately named fall. Of course, many of these plants are transplants like the humans. The only difference is the plants have the good sense to adapt and enjoy the climate. They even encourage disgruntled transplants to “feel the joy” with their display of natural beauty through the year as the seasons change. Like the purple trees...