Jimmy Barnes plants a Flame Tree at the Arboretum

No way it’ll survive in Canberra, unless they’ve built some kind of micro climate for it, you can cheat with brick walls to trap heat, and something overhead to block the frost. If not, it won’t see out the winter.

I’ll be impressed if that one can find a weary driver.

The co-planting of Illawarra Flame trees and Jacarandas all around Sydney generates gorgeous vistas of red and purple when they flower together, usually in November. Perhaps the song refers to both.

Nice clip, BTW – real people and settings – a refreshing change from soft porn and strobe-like intercutting. The shots of the concert are just like seeing Cold Chisel at the Coogee Bay Hotel in the early 80s.

Agree with PP that a few hard frosts will probably kill it, unfortunately. You might get it to survive if it was planted in a sheltered, sunny spot surrounded by lots of other trees.

good on jimmy, doing something for road safety in canberra.

those weary drivers, all revived, will be more alert and cause fewer collisions, no?

“According to the band’s official website, Walker’s inspiration for the song was a combination of his memories of Grafton where he had lived as a youth, and of his romantic dreams. The video of the song (directed by Kimble Rendall) however was filmed in Oberon, New South Wales. The reference to flame trees instead of the jacarandas for which Grafton is famous due to its annual Jacaranda Festival, is partly because of a contemporary television miniseries, the BBC’s The Flame Trees of Thika, starring Hayley Mills, “an old flame of the lyricist’s dreams”. The wording of the source article indicates that he had in the past fantasised about romance with Ms Mills, but not that there was actual romantic involvement between the two. (The source article contains some typos: instead of Thika, it calls the work The Flame Trees of Thaw, and the “author” given as Tony Creswell is named the more-probable Toby Creswell in another part of the site.)”

sb14 said :

Pretty sure the flame trees in the song refers to the Jacaranda’s famous in the writer’s home town of Grafton.

I thought it was about the town of Parkes.

Pretty sure the flame trees in the song refers to the Jacaranda’s famous in the writer’s home town of Grafton.

Lovely tree, but I fully expect the Canberra frosts to kill it. That is why you don’t see them in Canberra, they are not hardy enough.