Few spring-blooming trees are more spectacular than the trumpet
trees. In March and April, they enliven Southern California
neighborhoods with a short-lived, yet dazzling display of gold
or pink flowers. A leafless tree adorned with tens of thousands
of large, almost unnaturally bright, trumpet-shaped flowers is a
sight to behold. After an early spring stroll through Arcadia’s
Los Angeles County Arboretum or Santa Barbara’s Alice Keck Park
Garden, one is left wondering why such trees are not more widely
planted. These lovely tropical trees are the subjects of the
first installment of articles in Pacific Horticulture on
undeservedly rare trees. The Los Angeles County Arboretum &
Botanic Garden, which has the best collection of mature trumpet
trees in California, helped to introduce them to cultivation in
the 1970s. Although primarily grown in Southern California
(Sunset zones 15, 16, 20-24), these small to medium-sized
charmers could be cultivated in more northerly locations, as
they are cold hardy to temperat