You can always count on the Whitcomb cherry trees located at Nicola and Pendrell to announce the beginning of the Vancouver cherry blossom season: they’re the first cherry trees to bloom in the city.
The Whitcomb cherry blossoms are currently 40% open and worth a visit if you’re in the Vancouver West-End area.
Due to the presence of many electrical wires, you’ll need to zoom to get good pictures.
Don’t forget to look at your feet: the fallen blossoms can make good photos too.
A group of 40 people met at the Burrard skytrain station today at 2pm for our first Cherry Tree Talk and Walk of the season!
The Akebono cherry trees were in full bloom at the Burrard skytrain station.
Our second stop was the Governor’s Plaza (behind Urban Tea Merchant) where more Akebono trees greeted us.
The group stopped to admire an art exhibit (featuring dancing umbrellas) in a window.
But cherry trees were the star of the show, especially along the seawall.
Wendy Cutler, the leader of the walk, brought us to see many beautiful Akebono cherry trees blooming in courtyards of downtown condos.
Nothing more beautiful than cherry trees next to the water. We stopped there to rest a few minutes.
We saw lots of beautiful cherry trees, including some Umineko, Accolades and Shirotae (white blossoms with green leaves) which are starting to bloom. We walked to Stanley park and the walk finished at the heronry at 4pm. It was a lovely walk.
One of the questions that came back often was: Do cherry trees give cherries? The answer is: no. Our Vancouver trees are ornamental cherry trees.
The beautiful Akebono cherry trees are in bloom at Burrard skytrain station.
The trees will be in bloom for another 7-10 days.
Lots of benches for a quick hanami lunch, but expect a lot of activities and photographers.
When Akebono start blooming, you can see one of their main characteristics: some Akebono cherry blossoms have a sixth incomplete petal growing. This petaloid will fall a bit later, that’s why it’s important to visit the trees early if you want to identify them as Akebono (as opposed to Somei-Yoshino).
Burrard skytrain is one of our favorite locations Downtown. Because the trees are blooming earlier this year, we’ve added cherry talk and walk (Downtown and Stanley park) on Saturday March 14 2015 2-4pm
At UBC, there are four Okame cherry trees blooming: two outside the Asian Centre and two across the street, right outside the Parkade.
You can recognize Okame cherry blossoms by the long reddish calyx-tube that holds the petals together.
Because the calyx-tube is almost red, Okame are recognizable by the red “star shape” in the centre of the flowers.
The leaves grow bronze to reddish green.
Okame are rare in Vancouver because they are prone to diseases.
The Okame cherry petals are falling fast. You should visit this location soon.
This week is your last chance to see Okame cherry trees: most Okame cherry trees have already finished blooming, but because this Okame Cherry tree at UBC is in the shade, you’ll have one more week to enjoy it.
Source: True Loves 1 by Jason Turner (printed with permission).
Jason Turner is a Vancouver comic artist, author of the beautiful series True Loves. His work often features Vancouver landmarks such as the Lions Gate bridge, the seabus, Stanley Park… and cherry blossoms.
After hearing that Pandora cherry trees were blooming in Vancouver, I used the neighborhood maps to find a location and decided to go to Mt. Pleasant Park.
At Mount Pleasant Park (Ontario, between 15th and 16th), I found three Pandora cherry trees. With the Northshore mountains in the background, it’s a beautiful location to take pictures.
At first glance, this Pandora cherry tree (a modern hybrid) may look like Akebono. You’ll have to get closer to see the main difference…
The main characteristic of the Pandora cherry blossom is that the petals are deeper pink at the end. Can you see in this picture how the tips are darker pink?
The tree on 15th and Ontario has low branches, so you’ll be able to take shots like this in macro (without using a zoom).
It’s important to identify the Pandora cherry trees early (thanks to the darker pink at the end of the petals), because the flowers will usually turn white before falling…
Another main characteristic of the Pandora is that (most) blossoms fall intact!
On some of the fallen flowers, you’ll still be able to see the darker pink at the tip of the petals. But most flowers will be completely white when they fall.
There were lots of flowers under the tree.
You’ll notice something odd about these Pandora cherry trees: you can’t see the horizontal bars (lenticels) on the bark. Judging by the bark, you might think it’s a plum tree and not a cherry tree, but this tree is definitely a Pandora cherry tree.
To recap the characteristics of Pandora cherry trees:
tips of petals are darker pink
flowers turn white (mostly) before falling
flowers fall (mostly) intact
Check out the Ornamental Cherries in Vancouver for more information about the 54 varieties of cherry trees in Vancouver and to identify them.
Is this a good spot for Hanami picnic? Absolutely! Lots of green grass, park benches, lots of trees, fresh air, and stunning view of the Northshore Mountains. This location is a ten out of ten! Visit in the next week and bring your picnic!
There are seven Rancho cherry trees outside Pacific Centre (Georgia/Howe) in Downtown Vancouver.
The blossoms are quite large and bright pink.
The leaves are reddinsh brown (with a touch of green) and coming out with the flowers.
It looks like there are only three flowers coming out of each bud.
Good spot for hanami picnic? There are circular benches around each cherry tree, as well as metal benches nearby. However, it’s a busy location, with people coming in and ouf of the shopping mall. Inside the atrium at Pacific Center, there are lots of seats facing the trees, so it’s a good place to do your cherry blossom viewing indoors or to have a picnic inside on a rainy day.
Downsides: There are Christmas lights are wrapped around the trunk and branches, and they will probably be visible in your pics. On the other hand, this might be a fun location to try to take pics of cherry blossoms by night.
Photo tips: try taking pictures of the cherry blossoms with the Georgia Hotel sign, the clock tower, the round lampshades, or against the windows of skyscrapers. This is a fun location for photographers.
The Rancho flowers are big, bright pink and and really cute. The trees are small, but they are worth a visit, especially if you’ve never seen a Rancho cherry tree (you’ll get to see seven at this location).
Check out our neighborhood maps to find Rancho cherry trees in your area.
At the end of March, when you see rows of pink trees, in Vancouver don’t be too quick to yell “Cherry blossoms!” These trees might be plum trees – not cherry trees! To find out, you’ll have to get closer.
There are 12,000 plum blossoms in Vancouver. Plum trees are beautiful, but since the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival aims at celebrating the beauty of cherry blossoms – not plum blossoms – we prepared this guide to help you to know the difference between plum blossoms and cherry blossoms.
The main characteristics of plum blossoms are:
fragrant (they smell good)
no split at the end of petals
dark trunk with no horizontal lines
Check this out:
The smell of plum blossoms: Plum blossoms are very fragrant. At this distance, if your tree smells good and “flowery”, it’s probably a plum tree.
The smell of cherry blossoms: The early cherry blossoms are not fragrant. They don’t smell good or “flowery”. Their smell is very faint (almost non-existent), except for some rare cultivars in mid-season that can be very fragrant.
Petals of plum blossoms: Plum petals are oval. There is no split at the end of the petals.
Petals of cherry blossoms: Cherry blossoms have a small split at the end of each petal.
Bark on plum trees: The bark of plum trees is dark and does not have horizontal bars.
Bark on cherry trees: the bark of cherry trees is light grey and has horizontal lines called “Lenticels”.
Buds of plum blossoms: The plum buds are round and there is only one blossom coming out of each bud. They stick straight out from the branches on a short thin stem.
Buds of cherry blossoms: Cherry buds are oval. There is more than one blossom coming out of the bud (in this picture, six flowers are coming out of the bud.)
Leaves of plum: If the leaves are purple, then it’s definitely a plum tree. Plums leave come out with the flowers and unroll from a cigar shape.
Leaves of cherry: The leaves of cherry trees are green (or copper) and, for the early cherries, come out usually after the flowers. Cherry leaves unfold like a billfold opening.
Grafts: On plum trees, the grafts are placed on the branches. They grow vertically on the branches. These grafts will be more visible in early spring before the flowers bloom.
Grafts: On cherry trees, the graft is placed on top of the trunk so the tree looks “stompy”.
The shape of plum: mostly round or oval.
The shape of cherry trees: umbrella shape (the branches are spreading, so the top is wide than the bottom).
Colour: plum blossoms can be pink (with purple leaves) or white (with green leaves)
Colour: cherry blossoms can be dark pink, light pink, white, yellowish. The leaves are copper or green and come out usually after the flowers.
Plum characteristics: When all the plum blossoms are open, you can’t see the buds – and it’s hard to see the grafts – so you’ll have to rely on the plum blossoms main characteristics:
fragrant (smell “flowery”)
no split at the end of the petals
dark trunk (with no horizontal lines)
Cherry characteristics: There are over 54 varieties of cherry blossoms but they all share the same characteristics:
a split at the end of each petal
the light-grey trunk has horizontal bars
***
Think you got it? Take the test!
Cherry or plum blossoms?
Answer: plum.
Purple leaves and no split at the end of the petals.
***
Answer: plum.
No split at the end of petals. One flower coming out of the bud. Smells “flowery”.
The blossoms have just opened on this Accolade cherry tree, located on Broadway and McLean.
At the beginning of spring, it’s fascinating to observe how Accolade cherry buds turn into blossoms.
Accolade cherry buds start bright pink, but when the flowers open, they get more pale. In this picture, you can see the various shades of pink – from the bud (dark) to the blossom (pale).
This newly-opened blossom has a major case of “bed hair” — the petals curl up a bit – but it’s so adorable! Once opened, Accolade blossoms turn pale pink. You can still see a bit of dark pink at the edge of the petals on this photo. Proof that this blossom is very young and was still a dark pink bud yesterday.
Accolade cherry blossoms are my favorite flowers to photograph. The flowers are quite big and on a sunny day, they give you the best photo opportunity. Too bad it was cloudy during my visit.
Accolades are the second cultivars of cherry trees to open in Vancouver in the spring , right after the Whitcombs. Since at the beginning of spring, there are only two cultivars of cherry trees blooming, it’s easy to identify them: the Accolades have large pale pink blossoms, the Whitcombs have small dark pink blossoms.
For more information about Accolade and other Vancouver cherry trees, check out the 2014 guide to Ornamental Cherries in Vancouver.
Photo tip: there are two Accolade cherry trees at this location. The branches crawl up towards an apartment building, so it’s not a good location for wide shots. The branches have very few blossoms, but there are plenty of opportunities for good close-ups, especially if you go now, to capture the buds.
Accolades blossoms look their best when they just opened. For best results, visit this location within 2-3 days.The tree should be in bloom for another 7-10 days, but then you shouldn’t expect much.
Is it a good spot for hanami picnic? No. The trees are on a private property with a fence and next to the busy Broadway street.
