BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Bakersfield City officials and donors celebrated the planting of 20 Jacaranda trees on King Street Wednesday. This was the first phase of the Jacaranda Neighborhood Project.
“My grandmother had a beautiful Jacaranda tree in her front yard, and I just remember growing up and spending lots of times with my siblings and also my cousins underneath that tree,” said The Hub founder and Council Member for Ward 2 Andrae Gonzales.
Childhood that turned to a vision through The Hub of Bakersfield, and a spring to look forward to for East Bakersfield residents.
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“I like it, I can’t wait for next summer, and I think it makes our neighborhood look a lot more pretty, and hopefully when time comes people come by and look at it,” said Zeta Doroteo, who has lived in East Bakersfield her whole life. “It makes my house look a lot nicer having all around it. Besides, the shade for the kids, for us, and for our cars.”
The final goal of the project is to plant 100 trees by The Tree Foundation of Kern County.
“We need the carbon taken out of our air, which trees do for us every single day, and provide fresh oxygen for us to breathe, and shade, cooling temperatures, cool the sidewalks and roads, and make us feel better,” said Melissa Iger, Executive Director of Tree Foundation of Kern.
The beauty of the Jacaranda trees is an additional bonus.
“It’s an evergreen tree, it stays green all year long, but in the spring, that’s when the colors will come out,” said Conway Lopez, owner of General Tree Services, “You get all these vibrant purples on it. They normally hold the flower for at least a month, a little over a month.”
The Jacaranda trees that were planted Wednesday are already six years old.
If you want to see them bloom, officials say to be patient, there are still around seven months until they’re in season.
To support the Tree Foundation of Kern check out their upcoming November fundraiser.
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