On the way to view the magnificent 'Akebono' on Charles, Wendy Cutler spotted this gorgeous 'Yae-beni-shidare' out of the corner of her eye. On Dunlop, north of Charles. In peak bloom now.
More beautiful 'Akebono' on Greenall south of Rumble. It poured rain while the sun shone. I call that a sun shower.
Great scouting in Burnaby today with the boss. Wendy doesn't miss anything. Here's a 'Beni-shidare' she spotted at Sussex and Irmin. After that sun shower we had a little patch of blue sky.
I am going to say 'Shosar' ID for these. I stopped by today on the way to a meeting and almost all the flowers are gone. The trees look very reddish-bronze because of the very bright red calyces. They definitely have the "bushy rounded crown" as described in our book. There are no hairs on the pedicels. My misgiving would be that they fail to match the description of having "long, lustrous red pedicels", but the pedicels on the photo in the book don't all look like that either. The tree here looks very similar to the one in the book. (Ornamental Cherries - 2014 Edition - Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival). The owner of the house came out while I was photographing them. He doesn't like them, would take them down but he found out that it's city property right there and he's not allowed to do that.
These are not the same. When @jtremblay posted them originally (Burnaby), we decided they were 'Pandora', and that's what I decided today before I knew that I hadn't made a new discovery. These are very impressive-looking trees. The flowers are almost white now, and new leaves are emerging bronze.
I went to Pepperidge Court, but did not find the trees; I forgot about them being behind the townhouse and I didn't see how to get to any area with trees, didn't notice them walking around. They seem to compare pretty favourably though to the ones I'm calling 'Shosar' on Sherban (Posting 330) - upright branches and tree shape, red calyces, dark pink flowers.
I didn't remember anything about this, but was rushing off to the meeting that brought me out to Burnaby again, driving down Sperling, and there were all these 'Umineko', with a sprinkling of other cherries. In bloom. How lucky was that!? I think I was driving south of Halifax here.
Akebono reached their peak on Georgia (between Willingdon and Carleton). Visit this week-end to be showered with petals.
The trees on Pepperidge are in a private courtyard with No trespassing signs, so I thought it might be best if we don't include them on the map. Beautiful trees, though. Too bad they don't last long. They alreadyl lost their petals now. So fragile!
Anybody interested in seeing late blooming autumnalis rosea should visit Georgia street. There are autumnalis rosea trees mixed in with Akebono between Willingdon and Carleton), but my favourite trees are closer to Willingdon. The flowers are small and the trees are covered in leaves.
One of my favourite location in Burnaby. Perfect for a long stroll. And no crowds like on Graveley street. :-)
Southoaks Crescent by the Nikkei Museum and Cultural Centre has an abundance of akebono still in bloom with petals falling in the rain and breeze.
"Jenny" put a marker on our map at Canada Way and Wayburne. This seems to be called the Canada Way Business Park, is well past peak bloom now but the 'Akebono' planting here should definitely be a festival favourite. There is a small grove in the front of the building, with quite interesting bark. The real excitement is in backk of the building a beautiful allee lined with 'Akebono' on both sides. If you walk to the end of the allee, you can see a few 'Shirotae'.
Judith Anderson has sent me what she is calling, " 'Tai-haku' avec portapotty", her promised second annual shot of our currently favourite 'Tai-haku', on Malvern between Burris and Stanley. She adds that there was also a busy orange backhoe that just hid behind the tree's generous trunk.
This is McPherson Park, according to some of the world, including McPherson Park Junior Secondary, burnaby.ca's pamphlet "Discover Burnaby's Parks and Trails", and Google, but the street is MacPherson Avenue (or google says Macpherson; mapquest says MacPherson)) and burnaby.ca calls it MacPherson Pool (Mcpherson Park Pool on wikimapia.org). Anyway, two large 'Shiro-fugen' and a few 'Kanzan' in this park, might be a nice place to sit out under some cherry trees.
I asked the City of Burnaby about the name, by way of responding to a "did you find what you wanted" question on their website. Thanks to Burnaby Marketing Assistant Natasha Kothary, who looked into the story, and thanks to the Burnaby Parks people who provided the history to her. Parks did some digging into this inquiry and provided some history as to why both names have been used for that park. Here was their response: “Our records switch back and forth between “Mc” and “Mac” going back into the late 1940’s, and possibly the 1930’s. One of the keys is finding who the park was named for, or if the name only reflects the geographical location of the park. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any formal record of the park naming itself so it’s all speculation. If we go with the geographic location theory, we can look to the location of the park at the corner of Rumble Street and MacPherson Avenue. The road naming bylaw (Bylaw 135, 1912), uses the “MacPherson” spelling for the street name. It is possible, but not confirmed, that this road was named after Fred Liddell MacPherson (or McPherson), a Municipal Engineer, who supervised the laying of the water system throughout Burnaby. Although the spelling of the last name also, switches back and forth between McPherson and MacPherson, the staff at the Burnaby City Archive has been able to find some records that confirm the correct spelling of F.L.M.’s last name, as being “MacPherson”. However, with one exception in 1963, most references to the park that I have seen in formal Commission minutes from the early 1960’s seem to use the “McPherson” spelling the majority of the time. I also found a photo of the Park Pool circa 1934 on the Heritage Burnaby website and the Archives has it labeled as McPherson Park Pool. Another part of the puzzle is the former McPherson Park Junior High School. The school was built in 1951 and it took its name from the adjacent park. My own investigations found that a number of the School District publications used the spelling “McPherson” (Celebrating the past, building the future – Burnaby School District 41 Centennial Anniversary 1906-2006). I also found a number of the School Year Books on-line from the 1970’s which use the “McPherson” spelling. So I went to the source, and checked with the School District’s staff expert, and he indicated that he had been through the School District Archive and can only find reference to one spelling: McPherson. He noted that the school is consistently referred to as McPherson Park Junior Secondary School. This seems to imply that in 1950-51 when the school was built, the spelling of the name of the park was “McPherson Park”. Having said this, in the Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting Minutes of May 15, 1963, the Commission did name the pool as the “MacPherson Park Pool”. This could have been based on a typo, or Commission may have assumed the park was named for the geographic location on MacPherson Avenue, and so used that spelling. Archives also found reference to a MacPherson Station in a Dundonald United Church Outing circa 1924. This could have been a street crossing stop on the Inter-Urban tram line located a few blocks to the north of the park. So to recap, we know that: - MacPherson Avenue was named by Bylaw 135 in 1912. - McPherson Park Junior High School took its name from McPherson Park in 1951. - The new outdoor pool built at the park in the early 1960’s was formally named “MacPherson Park Pool” in 1963. If we make the assumption that the park was named for it’s the geographic location at the corner of Rumble Street and MacPherson Avenue, then the correct spelling based on the street name, should be “MacPherson” Park.” Hope this helps Natasha Kothary Marketing Assistant
@Josie NewWest put me on to these 8 or so 'Kanzan' trees on the site of the administration office of the Burnaby School District 41 on Kincaid at Royal Oak. The admin office will be moving to a new site, and this property may become 18 residential lots, if the rezoning goes through (or went through). This was news last year - Josie provided the link: Proposed New Burnaby School District Admin Office - Burnaby Schools - School District 41, Burnaby, BC, Canada. The future does not look good for these trees. It's not like there is a shortage of 'Kanzan' around, but this is a nice planting, and one of the trees is a good size and attractive.
@Georgia Strait asked in a PM for some comparison of trees in bloom and dressed in their autumn foliage. I posted two cherries in a Pac NW thread: fall foliage city and country, planted and wild. One was a 'Tai-haku', so I will do this comparison here in the Burnaby cherries thread. Judith Anderson just sent me her "fall is better than spring" photo, which I am sharing here next to @Willard's spring photo of one of the two beautiful 'Tai-haku' trees on Malvern.
At Georgia street, between Willingdon and Boundary, you'll find two dozen autumnalis rosea trees spread over eight blocks. The tiny blossoms are starting to open. Closer to Willingdon, approx. every five trees is an autumnalis rosea, but when you reach MacDonald, there are more and more trees closer together, which means more blossoms! If your keep walking towards Ingleton, the city of Vancouver appears at the end of the street (nice photo, if you can find the right angle). At this location, the flowers peak at the end of January and should last up to April (although at this point they'll be full of leaves and hard to spot amid the Akebono which will steal the show). Visit on a sunny day for better pictures (Autumnalis Rosea look great with a blue sky!)
The Whitcomb cherry trees at Ayshire and Aubrey are about 70% open. They should look good for another 7-10 days. If you're lucky, you might see a hummingbird in the blossoms. The one I saw on March 8 was tired of fighting the cold wind and sat on the branch, puffing its feathers.
We can still find new locations - here are two 'Accolade' just coming into bloom on Sussex at Carson, at the bottom of a long run of 'Whitcomb' trees. The 'Whitcomb' have been posted before, but only running to Rumble, are noted on our map as a festival favourite. These trees are south of Rumble, to around McKee. I want to link to a previous posting, of a lovely house with a beautiful 'Accolade' just off Rumble a block west of Royal Oak. I hope to see it next week, when it should be in full bloom, but maybe someone else can get there. @Blossomfollower, are you still around? Burnaby