Jacaranda trees in the Villages?

[Taltarzac725]

There was a beautiful jacaranda tree in Palm Harbor I used to see whenever it took the back roads to go to the Palm Harbor Library where I used to volunteer for about 4 hours a week from the Summer of 2000 through 2004 or so. The Library Director Gene Coppola and I did not see eye-to-eye about a link to the Florida Victim Services Directory from the Palm Harbor Library website, so I quit volunteering in protest. http://myfloridalegal.com/directory I still got to see the jacaranda tree whenever I went to check out books or when just going to the Publix, Books-A--Million or some other store near the Palm Harbor Library.

Are there any of these beautiful trees here in the Villages? I cannot remember seeing any of these. Check out the pictures of these from a town in Australia-- Jacaranda Festival Grafton - Australia's oldest floral family festival (http://www.jacarandafestival.org.au/)

Another link for jacarandas-- http://treesandshrubs.about.com/od/commontrees/p/jacaranda.htm

[Uptown Girl]

U-Fla extension considers them to thrive better in zone 9B to 11
We are considered 9A here.

Beautiful tree in bloom, but as your link states, it grows quite tall and spreads quite large and when it sheds…. it drops a lot of debris seasonally. (Some varieties are semi or fully deciduous) Messier than Crepe Myrtles.
Needs some care in pruning, as well to hold up in storms. They sometimes split in half if that is not done as they tend to splay out in growth pattern.

Not to say there aren't any here, but I can see why Jacarandas would not be used often, despite how lovely they can be.

[cquick]

yes, we are a little too far north for Jacarandas to thrive here.

There are a few at WDW, and a few around Orlando, but I have seen the most beautiful ones in the Bradenton/Sarasota area.