More about Jacaranda trees

Being a 6-year resident of California, I am new to the many beautiful plants that grow outdoors here. Over the past 50 years, when visiting my family in Southern California, I had always admired your beautiful, vibrant, purple, Jacaranda trees. I found them to be wonderfully exotic!

I recently read that the Jacaranda are the official Urban Tree of the City of San Diego. They line the edges of Safari Park, The Zoo, Balboa Park and Little Italy. They have been in San Diego since the 1890's.

The reason this exquisite, ornamental tree is used in our area is because they are drought and heat tolerant and are hardy to about 20'.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has categorized the Jacaranda as "vulnerable." On the other hand, it is regarded as an "invasive species" in some areas because it out competes the native plants.

I'm not an authority on Jacarandas, but I do not see evidence of invasiveness in our situation. What I do see is the horribly invasive Fountain Grass that Save Our Forest has been trying hard to eradicate, without the use of toxic chemicals, in our beautiful village.

Some people appreciate the Jacarandas, some do not. Sadly, it is difficult to please all of the people all of the time. I truly wish that we could!

As a Save Our Forest volunteer, I can vouch for the fact that the members of Save Our Forest work very hard to help Fallbrook continue to be a healthy, beautiful and welcoming village.

We are always looking for helping hands and knowledgeable people to assist in writing grants, requesting funds, planting trees, pruning trees, maintaining what we’ve planted and planning areas that need some TLC.

This summer we took on the Potted Plant Project that had been started and maintained by the Fallbrook Beautification Alliance for many years.

If you are interested in being part of our group, please check out the Fallbrook Land Conservancy website, http://www.fallbrooklandconservancy.org, for many volunteer opportunities to fit your individual schedule.

Debbie Meadows