It's Purple Season in Los Angeles

I know, it's June Gloom. But it's also jacaranda season as the trees bloom their pastel purple flowers -- and cause a mess on cars and streets everywhere!

It's Snowing in Eagle Rock! (Not Really)

Spring time, and the trees lining Colorado Blvd. in Eagle Rock are shedding so much that the sidewalks appear to be covered in "snow."

The South L.A. Tree Massacre

(Pic via LA Weekly)

Sadly lost in the excitement about the arrival of the Space Shuttle Endeavour has been the move to chop down nearly 400 trees in L.A.'s poorest neighborhoods. The trees had to come down in order to drive the shuttle from LAX to the California Science Center -- yet there was never any discussion or warning that this would happen, and never an attempt to try an alternative. The L.A. Weekly looks into the lies and spin that led to the mass tree removal. A snippet:

Until the moment Inglewood residents awoke to buzzsaws outside their homes on Sept. 3, few people knew of California Science Center president Jeffrey N. Rudolph's controversial plan to hack down more than 370 magnolia, coral, bottlebrush, eucalyptus, sycamore and pine trees that line the 12-mile shuttle route from LAX.

"This is unbelievable!" well-known wetlands activist Marcia Hanscom says with disgust.

She views the destruction of nearly 400 trees — after zero public notice or involvement — as "symptomatic of deeper problems: Here in L.A., it's OK to bulldoze a wetland away because 'it will come back.' The same disconnected thinking leads to approval of something like this tree massacre: 'We'll just plant more!' "

Few people realize that the city and the museum got away with, well, tree murder, by abusing an obscure section of L.A.'s municipal code that was actually meant to protect, not destroy, trees. Those rules normally apply to "house moving."

If Many Trees Fall in a Crowded Urban Setting

On Saturday afternoon, the Franklin Avenue Quartet decided to head over to the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino to enjoy their annual holiday festival. Of course, we should have checked beforehand to see if they were even open -- and sure enough, due to last week's windpocalypse, the Huntington was still closed on Saturday. (It re-opened on Sunday, and will hold a makegood day for its holiday festival next Saturday, Dec. 10).

But even though we missed out on the Huntington, it gave us an opportunity to finally try out Pasadena's Slaw Dogs (review to come) and drive around town to witness the jaw-dropping tree destruction first hand.

The visual of this collapsed massive oak, off Hill, was enough for us to stop the car and snap some photos. They still don't do justice to the sheer size of this toppled tree and its roots.

Thankfully for the home owner, somehow the tree knew exactly where to fall -- in the driveway. But nonetheless, it did some serious damage, destroying the driveway and ripping up both the sidewalk and the street. How even a fierce gust of wind can topple over such a giant is fascinating to me. A friend of ours suggested that all of these non-native trees in L.A., because they rely more on watering than on any deep water under the surface, have shorter roots and are less entrenched in the ground than in other parts of the country.

It's going to be a good Christmas for the San Gabriel Valley's tree trimmers. More pics of that tree: