Thursday's heavy rain knocked Brisbane's jacarandas down, and on Friday morning the ground under them was purple. The flowers couldn't hold on in that rain. In Sunnybank Hills whole footpaths and verges were covered in fallen petals, and the trees still had plenty left on top. If you want to see jacarandas this year, go now. The season is nearly over.
I talked about it on my Cantonese podcast, Brisbane真好, and made the video from my own photos. It has English subtitles.
What happens to jacarandas after heavy rain?
The flowers fall. Jacaranda flowers are small and light, and a big downpour brings a lot of them down at once.
Brisbane hadn't had rain like Thursday's for a long time. At its heaviest it really poured. My first thought was that the flowers would be gone. My second thought was that the ground would look amazing. Both were half right. Plenty of flowers came down, but the trees weren't bare, and for a day or two you get purple above and purple below.
A few days earlier I wrote about jacarandas after light overnight rain, when the petals were still on the trees holding raindrops. This was different. This was the rain that pulls them off.
Is it too late to see jacarandas in Brisbane?
Not yet, but you don't have long. Brisbane's jacarandas flower from October into November, and late October is the end of the peak.
By early November there usually isn't much left, and this weekend's weather is unsettled again. That is why I didn't wait for a nicer day. A grey morning with flowers beats a sunny morning without them.
Where can you see jacarandas on Brisbane's southside?
Look at your own suburb first. My photos came from three places, and the one I like most is just an ordinary street.
On Friday I dropped the kids at school, stopped in Sunnybank on the way, and had five minutes to shoot before work. I also took a few near home. The street in Sunnybank Hills is the one I go back to every year: jacarandas on both sides, almost the whole way along. After the rain the footpath and grass were covered in petals.
The other set is from New Farm Park last Sunday, before the storm. That is the famous spot, and it was lovely. If you want the park itself, my Brisbane jacaranda photo guide covers the best spots, and the full New Farm Park 2026 album has 41 photos.
If you're shooting on a residential street, stay on the footpath and keep out of people's driveways. These are someone's front yards, and the road is still a road.
Close-up or wide: how do you photograph fallen jacarandas?
Do both, because they give you two completely different photos.
Close up, get low and fill the frame with petals on the grass or footpath. The fallen flowers look like a purple rug, and the colour holds up well even under grey cloud.
Then step back and go wide. Put the carpet in the foreground and the line of trees behind it. That shows how far the purple goes down the street, which a close-up can't.
A cloudy day has one problem: a white sky. Point the camera a bit lower, or stand under the branches and shoot up into the canopy so the flowers fill the top of the frame.
How did AI help with the photos?
It sorted and edited them. It didn't make any of them.
I've been making videos with AI-generated clips lately, and you can see how in my Claude video workflow post. AI video is easy now. My RTX 4060 Ti can make clips at home. But this one is about taking photos, so it had to be real photos. There are no AI images and no AI music in it. The voice is mine and every picture is mine.
Where AI earned its keep was the boring part. I shot several hundred frames, some with hand shake from rushing. I recorded the voice note, told Claude (Opus 5.5) which days' photos to use, and it:
- picked the sharp photos and dropped the shaky ones, after checking each at 100% zoom
- trimmed and brightened them, because cloudy light makes everything a bit flat
- blurred number plates and faces
- cut the video to my voice and made the on-screen cards
Sorting a big pile of photos used to take me ages. Now I hand over the whole pile and check what comes back. The picks and the final check still need me. AI can make a jacaranda video in minutes, but it wouldn't be the street I stood in on Friday morning.
If you're curious about sorting a big photo library with AI on a home PC, I also wrote about tagging 7,600 photos on an 8GB GPU.
Will there be more jacarandas this weekend?
Maybe. I'm hoping to go back to the Sunnybank Hills street and shoot more if the weather allows. If more rain comes, the carpet will get thicker and the trees thinner.
Where are you seeing jacarandas this year? Do you prefer the close-up or the wide shot? Tell me on the contact page.
All photos are mine, taken in Sunnybank Hills, near home and at New Farm Park in October 2026. Plates and faces are blurred. Season dates checked 24 October 2026 against Brisbane City Council. AI helped me sort and edit the photos and edit the English.
