Vancouver Cherry Blossom FestivalPresented by
April 29, 2024. The last hurrah – ‘Shiro-fugen’ flowers are no longer looking fresh, but they still have colour – just not the colour they started with, which was white flowers with bronze leaves, like this.
Here is what the ‘Shiro-fugen’ flowers look like now, green leaves, pink flowers, some white flowers, and many flowers with a mix of pink and white petals. While dark pink ‘Kanzan’ flowers are now fading to white, these ‘Shiro-fugen’ white flowers are delayed-opening ones.
April 24, 2024. We’re getting down to the wire – only the very late bloomers still have flowers worth a visit: avium ‘Plena’, ‘Shiro-fugen’, and ‘Kiku-zakura’ – the chrysanthemum cherry. These light pink flowers are smaller than the other double-flowered blossoms featured recently, but they have 75 to 100 tiny petals to start, and then they get even more petals when they start showing second-story flowers developing from their centres. At this point, the aging pink flowers are fading, and the new flowers appear with dark pink buds opening to the mature light pink colour. These trees are small, with a distinctive goblet shape filled in by somewhat straight crossing limbs.
The photo below is an unusual capture of the sepals of the second story flower before its petals have even developed.
April 19, 2024. Not all late-blooming cherries are pink. Here are two double white cherries that can look alike. ‘Shiro-fugen’ are easy to distinguish when the flowers are opening – at that point, the leaves are bronze, buds are a brownish pink, opened flowers are white. Two weeks later, and as much as another two weeks or more, the leaves will be green, and the flowers become partly or completely fluorescent pink.
However, one week into ‘Shiro-fugen’ flowering, they do not look all that different from the ‘Shogetsu’, seen below. ‘Shiro-fugen’ should be much heftier trees, but it’s hard to tell that on very young trees. ‘Shogetsu’ buds are a a very pale pink. The flowers also open white, and the petals mostly drop still white within two or three weeks. The name refers to the “moonlight on pine trees” suggested by the long flower stems. These are usually delicate trees that often do not do well in our climate.
April 16, 2024. Pink ‘Kanzan‘ blossoms are still running the show. These are so widely planted here because they are generally healthy trees, relative to some of the other cultivars, and are able to withstand extremes of weather and a certain amount of truck pruning. These can be large trees, very often forming a canopy over the street when planted on both sides. They open bright pink, but gradually fade to a very pale colour.
Not in competition at all, but with similar-looking flowers, are ‘Pink Perfection‘ trees. These much more delicate trees will never form a canopy over a street. So far, they have not been particularly hardy here, but UBC Botanical Garden has propagated some on their own roots (not grafted, as all previously seen ones here were), to see if they will be more healthy. When these first open, they create a raspberry swirl ice-cream effect with their red buds, dark pink outer petals, and lighter inner petals.
April 11, 2024. You might have noticed – ‘Kanzan‘ blossoms are starting to appear. The City of Vancouver Street Trees Portal shows 10,000 of them planted as street trees, many of them lining whole blocks on both sides of the street. Since they’re also planted in parks and are popular in private yards, it gets pretty pink around here.
April 7, 2024. Still everything is blooming at once, still mid-season and late-season trees. Moving on to double flowers now, having more than five petals. Here is a comparison of fragrant white ‘Shirotae‘ blossoms, usually opening in the mid-season …
… , and ‘Ukon‘, with pale yellow flowers, usually appearing a little later. These often look white, unless there is something white to which to compare them. But as they age, they may take on some up-close colour interest with green and red stripes.
April 6, 2024. Still catching up here, with everything blooming at once – at least mid-season and late-season trees. Here are some single White flowers, all pretty rare in this area, with the top one just added. The ones with “nioi’ or “no-o” in their names are fragrant, a fairly unusual feature of cherry trees.
‘Sendai-shidare’ are easily distinguished from the others here – they are usually short dense pendulous trees with thick very contorted limbs.
The wizened ‘Jo-nioi’, at the RCMP Headquarters property has sent up a new shoot. Here’s hoping the only other known example in Vancouver does the same. This looks similar to the ‘Washi-no-o’ featured just below, but it blooms later and the flowers are more likely to show the extra half-petals you can see in this photo.
‘Washi-no-o’ are fairly rare, but our Cherry Scouts have found ten locations in the area. The name means “eagle’s tail”, suggestive of the ruffled petal edges.
‘Surugadai-nioi’, only two known so far, one very private tree in Fairview, and its offspring at UBC Botanical Garden.
‘Umineko’ are usually older trees than ‘Snow Goose’ but their parents are the same and they look identical. The young ones that come in labelled ‘Snow Goose’ get that name. Note the round overlapping petals that result in fat stars in the centres. Young trees are distinctively narrow and upright. Here are
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March 29, 2024. We have to catch up here – everything is blooming at once. Here are some single pink flowers, all pretty rare in this area.
Shosar’ in Richmond. We only know of these in two Richmond locations and one in Burnaby.
‘Star Cherry’ in Vanier Park near the Planetarium in Vancouver. We have five locations for these on our map.
‘Afterglow’ in the Kensington-Cedar Cottage neighbourhood. We knew nothing about this cultivar, but once we saw a street block of them and learned what they were, scouts found 10 more locations.
‘Choshu-hizakura’ in the Arbutus Ridge neighborhood. There were three locations, but a group in a park were removed for some park renovation that made us very unhappy.
March 23, 2024. ‘Akebono’ cherries are hard to miss now. This is the second most commonly seen cherry cultivar around Vancouver and their billowy pinky-white flowers grow on gracefully spreading trees – outstretched limbs are generally straight and most of the trees have a somewhat flat top.
The peak bloom date for Vancouver’s location in the 2024 International Cherry Blossom Prediction Competition was March 23.
Submissions are in from the international prediction competition, “When will the cherry trees bloom in 2024?”. The predicted date for ‘Akebono’ trees studied from Vancouver (Maple Grove Park in Kerrisdale) is April 3, just four days earlier than last year’s peak bloom. You can read about the predictions at https://competition.statistics.gmu.edu/.
The competition organizers provided all the publicly available data they could find on the bloom date of cherry trees. Competitors used this data, in combination with any other publicly available data, to create reproducible predictions of the bloom dates at five locations around the globe.
The organizers are hoping to help scientists better understand the impacts of climate change.
You can find the photos of the 2023 blooming development at https://vcbf.ca/2023/04/09/yesterdays-news-2023-international-cherry-blossom-prediction-competition/. We are using the same trees as last year.
Here are the first photos from 2024, taken March 10. The development here is similar to what was photographed last year on March 21. The group in the third photo are a little ahead of all the others. Photos are by Wendy Cutler.
Photos below were taken at 6:30pm PDT on March 15. The daytime highs were around 7 C degrees, until the last two days when they reached 10 degrees. Almost all buds have emerged from their bud scales, and some pedicels are visible, to .5 cm.
March 17, photos taken at 1:30pm. We are into the fourth sunny day with temperatures around 15 C degrees. We are ignoring the young fourth tree here. The three old trees are progressing at a different rate. It’s hard to see progress on the middle tree; the other two have blossoms lightening in colour, slightly enlarged, with most pedicels noticeable. The last four photos are of the most advanced tree, the one closest to the main road.
March 19, photos taken at 3:30pm. It was sunny all day, and the high temperature was 12 C degrees. The trees showed a marked advancement in blooming from two days ago, but they still show a difference in progress from each other. Most buds have swelled in size and lightened up in colour. All trees have some open flowers; one tree has areas with many open flowers; one has only a few open flowers on its south side; and one is intermediate between those two. The first group of photos were taken from the north, east and west.
March 21. This is not yet peak bloom, but these trees are now showy and are worth a visit if you’re near the area. They are showiest from a distance, but from close up, you can see how many more buds are still to open. After the first row showing the set from different directions, each row presents a single tree.
March 22. The morning was partly sunny, afternoon was partly drippy, high was 10.8 C degrees. No opinion on peak bloom is being given yet; we will post photos until we are sure these have passed the point of peak bloom, and leave it to Douglas Justice to make the declaration. The three trees are shown with blossoms on that tree; the group photo is shown last.
March 23. Today was rainy, high again of 10.8 C degrees. Photos here are by Shirley Willard. The format is the same: tree followed by its blossoms.
March 24. This bright sunny day reached a high of 13 C degrees, but it seemed warmer. The beach areas were summer-crowded. Our trees were sporting their best spring finery. Photos are by Wendy Cutler.
