Mexico City: Jacaranda purple haze, Centro Histórico, and native plants
A romantic, violet veil brightens Mexico City each spring, when jacaranda trees unfurl a profusion of purple flowers on bare, sinuous trunks lining parkways, park paths, and residential streets.
Jacaranda trees
I caught sight of the purple haze from the airplane as we descended over the smoggy city in early March. At ground level, in placid Alameda Central park in Centro Histórico, the historic city center, the view is even better.
These otherworldly, head-turning trees came from South America. According to online sources, a Japanese immigrant to Mexico (via Brazil) imported the jacaranda in place of cherry trees, which fared poorly in Mexico’s dry climate. The jacaranda thrives in Mexico City’s mild, dry, high elevation (7,300 feet!).
I’ve seen jacarandas in the U.S. in frost-free (or nearly so) locations like Phoenix and Southern California. But the profusion in Mexico City dazzled me.
I was forever stopping my family for “one more photo.” The airy trees are hard to photograph against a hazy sky, but the purple flowers pop against the greenery of other trees.
Lilac loveliness everywhere.
Palacio de Bellas Artes
Aside from jacarandas, Centro offers plenty of other attractions, like the amber-domed Palacio de Bellas Artes, overlooking the park.
Inside you can view trippy murals by Diego Rivera and others.
Speaking of trippy, here’s a spiral-eyed bronze figure, part of a sculptural park bench near Metropolitan Cathedral.
Native plant garden at Plaza del Marqués
We first saw the cathedral after dark on the evening of our arrival. Even at night I couldn’t help noticing a spiky garden on the side, in Plaza del Marqués. We returned another day at sunset, and I walked all around the raised-bed, native-plant garden, admiring fringe-tipped sotols, pineappled agaves (but why?), and columnar cacti.
I’m in love with this big, round sotol with tufted tips — like a fiber-optic light turned into a plant! I’ve never seen a sotol with tufted tips. I think it may be Dasylirion serratifolium?
A mass planting of big, blue agaves is impressive, but they’ve all been pineappled, i.e., pruned up so that only the central upright leaves remain. I’ve never been a fan of this look, but with so many it does make a statement, especially with some of them sporting tree-like bloom spikes. No doubt they’re pruned up to make maintenance easier, only there were still a lot of weeds and some agave pups.
Even with the oddly aggressive pruning, it’s a striking display. And those sotols!
And now let’s head around the corner to see the front of the Metropolitan Cathedral.
Metropolitan Cathedral and Zócalo
Illuminated by the setting sun, the stonework of the cathedral’s bell tower glows, and you can clearly see stems and flowers of plants that have self-seeded into crevices.
The grand cathedral faces Zócalo, one of the biggest plazas in the world. We popped inside just before closing and admired its golden altar.
At night the arched doors on the right side of the church are dramatically lit.
But nothing beats the glowing, romantic view from the rooftop restaurant at Zócalo Central Hotel.
From the balcony you have a bird’s-eye view of Zócalo. Filled with merchants earlier in the day, the plaza was still humming with demonstrators for some cause in the evening. Aztec dancers and drumbeats and the Mexican flag waving over the grand plaza, a ring of mountain peaks dusty blue in the distance. This is Centro Histórico in Mexico City.
Up next: The pre-Aztec pyramids of Teotihuacán. For a look back at the charming neighborhood of Coyoacán, click here.
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Digging Deeper
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My heart leaps at the sight of Jacarandas in bloom. We usually drive from Tucson to San Diego in June to soak up all that color. Doubt we will venture out by then so I am extra grateful for your report from Mexico City.
Thank you for your travel story
Thanks you for your comment, Barbie, especially about enjoying the travel report. I confess I have mixed feelings about posting about our recent travel to Mexico in light of the suffering so many people are experiencing, and the angst others are feeling (and that I share). While I now see that our trip was cutting it even closer than I realized at the time with regard to the U.S. outbreak — and that experts agree will soon occur in Mexico too, unfortunately — I hope that sharing the beauty and cultural appreciation of travel is still something that brings joy and helps to pass the time for my plant-loving readers cooped up at home.
I first saw jacaranda in Lisbon last year and was blown away. I didn’t know they were also in Mexico City. Your trip looks so great. Happy you got to experience it before the current state of affairs.
Me too, Gretchen. See my reply to Barbie, above. And I’m glad you’ve gotten to enjoy the jacaranda too!
A beautiful city no doubt. Those Jacarandas are beautiful in mass like this.
Like a purple cloud — they were beautiful! Mexico City has much beauty and grandeur, and also serious blight, like any city. It also struggles with air quality because of smog trapped by surrounding mountains. I enjoy sharing beautiful and interesting things I see when I travel, and I hope in this time of uncertainty and angst (and non-travel) they will bring joy to readers, or at least help pass the time until things get back to normal, or our new normal. Stay well, Lisa!
thanks for sharing more of your photos, Pam. I always look forward to Jacaranda season here, even though my own garden has just a single dwarf tree. We’re still probably over a month away from that display.
A dwarf jacaranda! Sounds perfect for putting those lilac flowers closer to view.
Thank you, Pam, for generously sharing your trip photos. I read your comment replies above, and want to register that I very much enjoy reading about your trip and seeing your gorgeous photos, *especially* in this time of uncertainty. It is a bright spot in my day. And I agree – those sotols!! Wowser, I would love one of those in my garden.
Thanks for saying so, Maggie. That encourages me! And yes, those sotols — love ’em.
This took me back to our visit in 1982. We stayed in a State Department friend’s house in Loma de Chapultepec, and I drove us around the city. Thanks for the memory.
I don’t envy you the driving, Peter (we loved the ease of Uber), but it’s very cool that you were able to stay with a friend while you were there.
I remember flying into LAX one year when the jacaranda there were in full bloom, it was an amazing sight. Those sotols though!!!
Those sotols were incredible. And the jacarandas too.
Jacs are beautiful, but messy. Ideal in a neighbor’s yard, not in one’s own!
The pineapple effect on the Agaves, yeah. strange. Don’t see that much in SoCal.
Dasylirion acrotrichum?
Dasylirion acrotrichum? I don’t know — maybe!
I have had a jacaranda in my backyard grown from seed (from Mexico) for about ten years now. The very hard freezes take it to the ground. It has overwintered without much problem for a few years now and is about 12 or 15 feet tall. But never a bloom. 🙁
Where are you located, Chris? And do you find it’s worth growing if it doesn’t have those beautiful flowers?
I’m here in Austin. Hyde Park area. It has lovely feather foliage and just sort of blends into everything around it. I’m determined to one day get blooms.
Climate change is on your side.
I purchased two very small Jacarandas from the Natural Gardener last year. I put them pots
and then over wintered them in my small greenhouse. All the leaves and stems came off except
the top tier. It was messy. Anyway, they are already too tall for the greenhouse next winter so
I am going to wrap during a freeze and hope for the best. I am rather doubtful I can plant them
in the ground here, but wonder if others have had success doing so. They were my favorite tree
when I lived in Phoenix.
I’m surprised the Natural Gardener sells jacarandas here in Austin, as I’ve never seen one in bloom here, and they don’t like hard freezes. See Christopher’s comment, above, about his Austin tree — it has never bloomed in 10 years. Maybe with global warming we’ll one day be able to grow them like Phoenix, but I’m not hoping for that climate change any time soon! I suggest falling in love with our unique native flowering trees like Anacacho orchid tree and golden leadball. 🙂