It started a bit more than a week ago; the tree that had been plain gray branches began forming small dense reddish-pinkish clusters. Exactly a week later, those clusters had swelled & begun to look like beads of wax. & then yesterday, it really began to bloom.
Cercis canadensis is actually in the legume family (that's right- peas &
pulses), but it is a tree. & what a tree! Although the top of its
habitat is in New Jersey & the western-most point in Texas, I had not seen redbud -or certainly not in enough abundance to remember- until we moved to Florida. Now I cannot get enough of them. They can be hard to find, mostly because they are fast-enough growing that the plant sold by nurseries rarely looks like much.
Do not be deceived by descriptions with words like "weedy"; this is a healthy happy tree. There are not many widespread applications & virtually none are commercially viable (except as an ornamental & then it gets low marks for that because the flowering period is brief).
Apparently a springtime shower of flowers, a food source for wildlife & shade in the hot summer is just not enough to make a tree worthwhile to the landscaping public. You can keep your endlessly flowering trees, those deciduous things that really only lose their leaves when the new ones push through, & everything else you can find in every nursery. I will be napping under the Judas Tree.
