Blooming Now

March 24, 2023. Double (or semi-double) flowered ‘Accolade’ cherries are starting to look good around town. These flowers have more than five petals. They are more than twice the diameter of the earlier-blooming ‘Autumnalis Rosea’, and they form a tidier flatter disk. Shirley Willard took this photo at Vancouver City Hall on March 19.

For a comparison, here are ‘Autumnalis Rosea’ flowers from March 11. This is the only other cherry cultivar in bloom right now with more than 5 petals. Well, sometimes you can find an extra petal on ‘Whitcomb’ blossoms, but that is rare. Thanks again to Shirley Willard for the photo.

You can find blossom photos featured here at Blog – Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival (vcbf.ca). And the festival favourite locations posted last year are still below, in the No Longer in Bloom section of this page.

You can share your finds on our forums at VCBF Neighbourhood Blogs | UBC Botanical Garden Forums – note this is temporarily not available.

You can find photos previously featured here last year in the Album at https://vcbf.ca/albums/blossoms-from-2022/. If you missed some of these postings, the newer ones have been saved in the Blog – Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival (vcbf.ca).

You can find the new 2014 enlarged edition of the indispensable guide to Ornamental Cherries in Vancouver, written by Douglas Justice, Associate Director & Curator of Collections at UBC Botanical Garden. Purchase the full eBook version here on our Shop.

International Cherry Blossom Prediction Competition

The 2023 Second International Cherry Blossom Predition Competition closed on February 28. Vancouver’s location for the competition is again the ‘Akebono’ trees in Maple Grove Park, at the corner of SW Marine Drive and Yew Street. The overall consensus for the blooming date for these trees in 2023 is April 5. On March 20, the Cherry Blossom Prediction Competition’s Jonathan L. Auerbach spoke with CBC Radio’s Gloria Macarenko about trying to figure out when the Instagram-worthy blossoms will appear. Here is the 6-minute interview: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-46-on-the-coast/clip/15973390-what-day-think-cherry-blossoms-bloom-year.

Douglas Justice, Associate Director, Horticulture & Collections at UBC Botanical Garden, and Wendy Cutler, VCBF Cherry Scout Co-ordinator, have begun following the blooming progress of these trees and will report the “official” peak bloom date for this location for this year.

You can find last year’s photos at https://vcbf.ca/2022-cherry-blossom-prediction-competition/.

Festival Favourites

Some of our festival favourite photo-op locations were shown here during the bloom season with current year photos and the approximate blooming dates. Red markers on our festival map show all our favourite locations. ​​​​When we talk about Festival Favourites, we mean you will be happy you made the trip to see them to photograph them. When you’re there, remember the neighbours:

1) do not climb the trees
2) do not break the branches
3) be respectful of the residents who live on the street
4) do not stop in the middle of the street
5) keep your visit to a max of 15mins (cause really, how long does it take to snap a few photos?)
6) stay on city property, do not go on private property
7) try to stay off the grass, especially if you are wearing heels.
Mostly – be respectful to the environment and the residents. Remember that it is the residents who are responsible for caring for those trees.

Learn How to Take Cherry Blossom Photos with your phone thanks to Cakewalk Media for the tips!

Festival Favourites in bloom

Here is a sampling of VCBF Festival Favourite photo-op locations posted by our Cherry Scouts. You too can become a Cherry Scout – see Cherry Scouts – Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival (vcbf.ca)

Festival Favourites from 2022

While our forums are temporarily unavailable, we’ll keep last year’s sample of favourites here. Note that this year’s blooming dates may differ, particularly for the earier blooming trees.