Purpley-flowered trees. Discovering nature on your doorstep.

It’s now become the norm that when I arrive back at home with baby girl after our late morning/midday shop, even though the car drive is no more than 5 minutes, she’s asleep when I turn off the ignition.

Today was no different. I did the usual: taking in the shopping while keeping a watchful eye on her, as well as one car door open to maintain the breeze in the developing heat.

After I was done I came back to stare at her sleeping in the car. I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t pick her up and bring her in. I knew she would wake up if I brought her inside, and so I decided that standing there for about 30 minutes would give her the somewhat decent nap she needed.

It was while standing there that I realised the scent in the air: without thinking about it all too much my mind went ‘lavender.’ I looked around, knowing full well that there is no lavender of any sort bordering our property, then noticed the tree in the middle of our nature strip out front. It had purple flowers.

I had never really noticed it before. Yes Spring has been around for a while now, but these minute flowers were indistinct, and I just know that they’d taken some time to develop. That with my tunnel vision, says a bit.

I went up to them and smelled them. The scent wasn’t overwhelming, but there was a similarity to lavender. I was excited. I also noticed that the tree was harbouring little fruit-like seeds too.

I thought we had a regular green tree out front, when in fact it’s a purple, nice-smelling tree. Not quite lavender, but it’s good enough for me.