Got an ID.....it's a Handroanthus impetiginosus...

I left the seed pods on mine this year, because the birds sometimes like the seeds. But many are still hanging on, and the birds mostly preferred other food. So I will be snipping them next year. That is a ladder and pole pruner task for the tallest tree--not my favorite gardening task... But at least it gives a good, long flower show. Just wish it wasn't bright pink. ;) Love these trees, though. Have found they adapt surprisingly well to large containers.

I always thought this was a tabebuia, is that an older name that is no longer correct or are they two different trees? I did some searching to try and figure this out. Some of the results seemed to indicate they were the same, some seemed to indicate they were different.

Related to tabebuia, I believe....falcon?

Well, I was surprised when I looked it up and saw all that pink...LOL..my friend does not like pink so she must really love that tree for some reason...it most likely would not live here forever and I couldn't take all that pink. Maybe she will try the yellow variety. I've pulled out coleonemas for less pink than that...LOL..

It was a name change. I still mentally go by Tabebuia, because I'm old and stubborn and too lazy to keep up with the multiple changes for plants. I have both the yellow and the pink. The pink flowers for months in the spring. My yellow flowers for a few weeks, then if I am lucky, a few sporadic flowers on the ends of some branches later.

I'm not a pink fan, but it really is lovely. The yellow's foliage is a little bit coarser. Another reason I don't razz the yellow much for the short bloom is that the Tacoma stans shrubs here, with similar color yellow, never stop blooming. (Yes, never. They have been in constant bloom for years now.) I have the two separated a bit, because bright yellow and bright pink together is a yucky combo.

Yes...and I no longer have room to keep certain things separated enough.....I have a couple of embothriums to site and I'm having a hard time with the red....

I meant separated per relative to my small yard; only 25' in actuality, but situated so they are not in common sight lines. I used the reddish Tecoma 'Bells of Fire' with the pink trumpet tree visual. Contrasting colors are not bad. I'm just careful with pink, or bright orange.

What color does the red embothrium clash with in your garden?

I have a very small lot here and I like a lot of grasses, wild looking things with subtle tones, lots of brownish green, etc....small touches of color...too much vivid coloring would be overwhelming for me....color ends to come from purples and blues with small touches of yellow and orange...small flowers. That's just me, inside the house is all neutrals also....calming for me...The largest splotches of color will be from the hydrangeas.

I do have a couple of small touches of red...LOL...volunteer schizostylis that were surprises in clumps of carex dug for me from a friend's property....and I do like those, who knows, maybe I'll have more red...

I have found that what will grow well in a particular garden's location dictates what color(s) I go with. Our previous landscape ran more towards the purples and off-whites; contrast flowers were generally smaller in size, scattered and leaned towards muted shades. ( I found a rare photo of a section of the back yard, which did have more reds, but I don't think most were particularly bold visually.)

This garden has very sandy soil, with hardly any organic matter. So there are more tecomas, russelia, freesias, salvias, grevilleas and other Australian plants, which grow well in this less nutritious mix. And many of them come with bold colored flowers. At least it stops the eye from focusing on how very close the neighbors' houses are here. lol This is a shot I took of one part of a Tecoma stans yesterday. I cannot bring myself to fault such a hard working plant!

Lovely ! The first pic is what I love most....the tecoma stans would be too much of a Show Stopper for me. I think for myself I have to be careful with what I think of as attention grabbers...I do like Cassia bicapsularis for yellow. I think that's my problem with the embrothrium...it will not 'blend'...LOL..on a larger property, yes, I could use it, but maybe not here. I very much miss all of my salvias that I grew in Fallbrook and am finding that I miss the feel of that entire landscape, but it's different here and each garden takes on a life of its own...and this one will keep changing as trees grow, etc....hope I live that long....LOL..and I am trying to work in more and more of my previous salvias to see how each will work here..

I did love the size and resulting landscape of photo #1--but it drank quite a large amount of water. I work with the bold ones in the current site by thoughtful placement, and careful bloom season choreography--so most areas only have one bold player at a time. The yellow tecomas are to one side, and only a sliver of them is peripherally visible from inside of the house, for example.

As with many gardens, the tone has evolved, even over just a few years. As the non-blooming foliage plants have matured, texture and structure become stronger. The garden has broken up into intimate sections, rather than being viewed so much as one whole.

I only have room for a single Cassia bicapsularis shrub, and it is responsible for the 6-12 (or more!) sulphur butterflies that constantly swarm the garden. A neighbor walking past recently stopped and told me she thinks of our garden as being a "magical place" because there are always so many butterflies. I loved that! My Cassia/Senna is the C.b. 'Worley's Butter Creme'. It has very pale, soft yellow flowers--not bold at all. The bushtits and warblers have figured out that it hosts a feast of caterpillars, so I am seeing flowers for the first time in a few years.

hehehehe...I was afraid to recommend the 'Worley's'...in case you already had one cassia and no room for another, but, yes, the Worley's is my favorite also.

You probably feared I'd dig it out to put a Worley's in. :) It is true--I do whack and remove more freely than most. Wish I had room for one in the back yard, but they really eat up the horizontal space. And I have two Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' shrubs busy doing that already!

My likewise addicted friends and I have come to agree that a plant dying now just means room to plant something else.....and I have so much new stuff up here to explore and experiment with...and plenty of water, I love being able to say that...LOL..

Yeah, SoCal sure got gypped by El Nino last winter...

and if the forecast is correct, this Winter down there won't be any wetter..if it is indeed a La Nina coming, we will be wetter and colder, but I swore when we moved up here that I would never complain about rain....I will make cookies and pies and read and eat myself into a coma....

Having said that the tecoma stans is too bright for me, I was looking at the Huntington blog and sure did like the pic of the Tecoma 'Sunrise'

T. 'Sunrise' stays a nice shorter size, too. (Although I needed the 12' height of the standard plant in their location.) 'Sunrise' does not seem to be offered by the growers here--instead, they like the similarly colored, but contrast heavy to the cringe range, 'Sparky'.

The other problem I have with the cultivars, Gold Star, Bells of Fire, Mayan Gold & an unlabeled tangerine being my experience, is that they go scraggly-to-foliage bare for a 2-3 months (to varying degrees, depending upon the cultivar), even in our mild winters. And if I don't prune them way back (Gold Star excepted), then the new foliage in spring grows at the top, and the lower stems remain bare. Unfortunately, that tendency limits their usefulness in the landscape.

Along the line of too much color for me...I'd tried growing Rehmannia elata in SoCal and it did not do well for me...so I was happy to spot one at local grocery store nursery....it has done VERY well here, even still potted....

This will not do....it will go live at my friend's house....

I started growing those when I lived in the back country of San Diego County. They did great there, except when our dog would slide through them while chasing balls. Yours look like how they would grow there. But here, they do ok for about thee years before needing some to be replaced, and don't spread like I was used to. I blame the lousy soil. I find them sometimes in 4" pots, so purchase those instead of the 1 gal. size to save money.

Back Country? I do miss that...for awhile before deciding to come up here, I thought we might do Warner Springs...

We bounced around the SD back country for many years, before moving to south OC. It is one of the reasons I have a tall hedge in the side yard, to visually pretend there are no neighbors. :)

Yes, neighbors.......but....I have found that I do like living on a 'street' where my garden work is actually seen and appreciated by others...and we rented this house to live in while looking for something to buy and found that we really like our neighbors...and I do have things growing that will eventually block out a lot. I miss the first snowfall in Julian...and the ones down low enough to hit Warner Springs and like the Chihuahua Valley with the Buddhas and considered living in Anza. I had come to love the isolation out there...and Wynola Pizza when we might be the only ones there, sitting in back in the quiet...I do miss it.

I miss the quiet very much. And seeing the stars. I rarely stopped in downtown Julian due to the tourist level. But we would do things like owling Wynola Rd. Had the most incredible surrounding of spotted owls there once with an expert birder. Cuyamaca, and Mt. Laguna were favorites. I'd dip down into the desert to bird. Don't miss the wildfires though.

No, do not miss the fires....after we'd had to evacuate once I knew that it was ruined for me there, plus Fallbrook just was not what it once was...and we had more noise from neighbors' dogs and quads and roosters than we could ever have here....there are always choices to be made unfortunately. It's not erfect here, but works for me...Julian area was where I first saw wild turkeys...

Wow, I think I know that tree, the handroanthus... do the flowers smell like vanilla? Those are all over the parking lot in the park I go to. Never knew the name.

On second thought I think I'm wrong, the leaves don't look right. I'll look again though.

Now you have me wondering what tree has flowers that smell like vanilla. That sounds like a nice one to have around. I've never noticed any scent from my handroanthus. But sometimes plants are sneaky and only release their scent at night, or within certain temperatures ranges, for example.

Gyr_falcon, if you live in LA you can go see them, they are planted in the Upper Lot # 2 at Griffith Park near the merry go round. They aren't blooming now though.

I may be confused. It is the flowers wcgypsy posted (rehmannia) that look like the ones on these trees ... so, it may not be the same tree.

But, I imagegoogled handroanthus imp... and that *could* be it. I can't tell for sure. And these trees may also get those pods, but I really only pay attention to the flowers so I'm not sure. It could be the same though. At any rate, there *is* a tree that grows flowers that look like rehmannia, which are lovely pink, and which smell like vanilla. Quite marvelous. Nature!

I live in Orange County, Need2SeeGreen. I don't wander into the LA area very often.

No, unfortunately....when I was in Fallbrook I missed getting into L.A. The traffic just made it intolerable...hadn't been to Griffith Park in over 40 years.....even when heading up to the San Joaquin I'd take the 210 and leave at 3 in the morning.