Jacaranda mimosifolia (Jacaranda acutifolia)

Jacaranda carries an open, layered, spreading frame of fine bipinnate foliage, and by late spring the whole crown goes over to purple, soft trumpets in loose panicles that carpet the ground as heavily as they cover the tree. Grafton and Brisbane build festivals around it. The filtered shade under that airy canopy is the second reason to plant one, since lawn and garden beds actually live beneath it, and it is used as a feature shade tree in lawns, parks and wide street verges.

Room, warmth and somewhere for the mess to fall

Plant it in full sun, in deep, free draining soil. It is a warm temperate to subtropical tree that flowers most reliably where winters are mild, and young plants are frost tender, so in colder districts protect them for the first few winters until the trunk hardens. Being deciduous, it stands bare only briefly before flowering. Give it an open position with room to spread sideways, well clear of eaves, boundary fences and overhead wires. It flowers more heavily after a dry winter, which is why the display varies from year to year in the same street, and the surface roots are greedy, so a bed packed underneath needs tough plants.

The failure mode is putting it over hard surfaces. Fallen bells are slippery on paving and clog pool filters, the limbs are brittle enough to break out in a summer storm, and surface roots lift paths and driveway edges in time. Lawn or an open garden bed is the right home for it. A narrow verge beside a driveway, a pool surround or a courtyard of fine pavers is not.

Purple, gold or something smaller

The other flowering trees here work at different scales. Golden trumpet tree is the smaller, upright option with a short gold flush and much less litter, which suits a courtyard where a jacaranda would be a mistake. Chinese flame tree flowers later, in summer, and follows with pink papery capsules on a flat topped crown of similarly modest size. Jacaranda is the one to choose when you have a lawn, a park or a wide verge and want that late spring purple over filtered shade. Jacaranda is also the only one of the three that will shade a car or a table properly, which for many buyers settles it. Where the space cannot take that spread, take the smaller tree rather than compromising. More options in flowering.

Prune after the purple, feed for buds

Prune as soon as flowering finishes in early summer. Jacaranda flowers on wood formed the previous season, so a winter tidy up removes the display you were waiting for. Concentrate on structure while the tree is young: one leader, no tight forks and no long unsupported limbs, because the wood is brittle at narrow unions. Feed in late winter with a fertiliser low in nitrogen and higher in potassium. Heavy nitrogen, including lawn feed drifting into the root zone, is the usual reason a healthy mature jacaranda grows well and flowers poorly. Do not lop a mature tree to control its size, because the regrowth is weaker than the wood removed.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 22 sizes, from 125mm up to 1500L, priced from $16.95 to $21999.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to choosing a tree for a small backyard.