Some time between late October and the middle of November, porteños start looking up. The jacarandas are about to go off. For a few weeks the city’s avenues turn a color that sits somewhere between lilac and sky blue, the sidewalks fill with fallen trumpet-shaped flowers, and even people rushing to the subte slow down to take a photo. If you are in Buenos Aires this spring, it is the one show you should plan your walks around.
Why Buenos Aires Is a Jacaranda City
The jacarandá (Jacaranda mimosifolia) is not originally from here. It grows wild at the edge of the yungas, the mountain cloud forests of Tucumán, Salta and Jujuy, and in neighboring Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. Its name comes from Tupí and is usually translated as “fragrant.”
It arrived in the capital thanks to Carlos Thays, the French-born landscape architect who ran the city’s Parques y Paseos department in the late nineteenth century. Thays sent expeditions north looking for ornamental trees, tested them in the Jardín Botánico he created in Palermo, and planted the ones that thrived. The jacaranda did, along with the tipa, the lapacho and the palo borracho.
The city has kept planting ever since. The latest tree census counts about 18,900 jacarandas: roughly 13,900 lining sidewalks and another 5,000 in parks and plazas. That makes it the fourth most common tree in public space, behind the American ash, the plane tree and the linden. In 2015 the city legislature made it official and named the jacaranda the árbol distintivo, the signature tree of Buenos Aires.
When to Go
Here the tree drops much of its foliage over winter and early spring, so the main bloom happens on nearly bare branches. That is why the color looks so saturated. The big flowering usually peaks in November and lasts around four weeks, though a cold or rainy spring can push it later, and some blocks peak while others a few streets away are just starting. A second, smaller bloom shows up in February or March.
Early morning and the hour before sunset give the softest light for photos. Do not overlook the days after the peak, either: when the flowers fall they carpet the sidewalks and collect in the gutters, which is its own kind of beautiful. And if you stay into late November, watch for the tipas, whose yellow-orange flowers follow the jacarandas along avenues like Figueroa Alcorta.
A Walking Route From Plaza de Mayo to Palermo
The densest corridors run through the center and north of the city, so you can link several of them on foot in a long morning.
Plaza de Mayo and the diagonales. Start in front of the Casa Rosada. The two diagonal avenues that fan out from the plaza, Diagonal Norte (Presidente Roque Sáenz Peña) and Diagonal Sur (Presidente Julio A. Roca), are both listed by the city as jacaranda corridors. Purple against the stone facades of the old banking district is a classic Buenos Aires contrast.
Plaza San Martín, Retiro. Head north to this sloping, formal square, a favorite bloom-watching spot for locals. The jacarandas frame French-style buildings like the Palacio Estrugamou nearby, and the grassy slope toward Avenida del Libertador is a good place to sit for a while.
Avenida Callao toward Recoleta. The stretch of Callao between Santa Fe and Libertador is another official corridor. From there, wander toward Plaza Francia and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, where old trees line the streets around the Recoleta Cemetery.
Figueroa Alcorta and Avenida Sarmiento. This is the showpiece. Figueroa Alcorta between Casares and Pueyrredón runs past the Facultad de Derecho and the Floralis Genérica, and Avenida Sarmiento, between Libertador and the railway viaduct, cuts straight into the Bosques de Palermo. Finish at El Rosedal, the rose garden by the lakes, which flowers in the same season.
Beyond the Postcard Spots
If you want jacarandas without the crowds, the city’s own list of corridors goes well beyond Palermo. Try Avenida San Juan between Boedo and 9 de Julio, which runs through San Cristóbal and the edge of San Telmo; Avenida Corrientes between Estado de Israel and Dorrego, through Villa Crespo and Chacarita; or Avenida Cabildo and Luis María Campos in Belgrano, where the bloom comes with a quieter, residential feel.
Locals also talk about a particular tree on Avenida Belgrano that has been noted for producing a branch of white flowers among the purple. It is the kind of detail that rewards slow walking.
Plenty of Argentines first learned about the tree as children through María Elena Walsh’s song “El Jacarandá,” a staple of school music classes. It explains some of the affection: for many porteños, the bloom marks the real start of spring and the countdown to summer.
The Practical Takeaway
Do not book your trip around a single date, because the bloom shifts every year. Instead, plan to be in the city in November, keep your schedule loose, and spread your walking across a few corridors so you catch whichever blocks are peaking. Wear comfortable shoes, bring a camera for the early light, and if you only have one morning, walk Avenida Sarmiento into the Palermo parks and end at El Rosedal.
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