I have been ignoring this blog, and now I'm sorry that I didn't at least do a summary of what last year was like. 2017 was a late year, though not the latest year. And it ended almost on time, which is not what happened for my first year as as scout, which was a late year that ended late with mid-season and late-season cherries all finally opening at the end of April. 2018 was a normal year, in spite of the word on the street, with everyone complaining about how late everything was. The early and mid-season trees were about a week earlier than last year; late season trees all opened by the end of April. The VCBF Tree Talks & Walks all had the appropriate trees open: April 1, Easter Sunday, 'Akebono' in the West End were at peak bloom for my walk. They were still looking good for the April 5 Cherry Jam downtown and Joseph Lin's downtown walk. April 8, Strathcona - Egan Davis still had some colour on the 'Accolade' trees on Pender, and the 'Akebono' trees were in pretty good shape at Oppenheimer Park; 'Shirotae' and o-yama-zakura were at peak bloom. April 14 and 15, Sakura Days at VanDusen Botanical Garden, 'Beni-shidare' were past peak bloom but some still had nice enough colour. 'Snow Goose' had the best colour. April 15, Stanley Park - Bill Stephen had 'Akebono' past peak but still in bloom, and 'Shirotae' at peak bloom. April 15, Queen Elizabeth Park - Alex Downie had 'Akebono' past peak but with some flowers, but the 'Somei-yoshino', which is supposed to bloom at least three days before 'Akebono', had finally just opened its flowers. April 22, Oakridge and South Cambie - Douglas Justice had all the feature streets in bloom: 'Takasago' for a block on Ash, avium 'Plena' for several blocks on Heather, 'Ukon' for a block on Baillie, also two 'Ichiyo' on 41st at Willow, and the 'Kanzan' were starting to open. April 29, Egan Davis had the best 'Shiro-fugen' display anywhere, at Callister Park in Hastings-Sunrise, trees in full bloom. Our VCBF Neighbourhoods Map has 2770 markers, most of them placed by the Cherry Scouts. Here is a chart of the neighbourhoods with the most locations entered. Clearly, some of these "neighbourhoods" are cities. I will say more about that in another thread.
