On the evening of Wednesday, March 11th, I was invited to a dinner at one Japanese house in Shaughnessy. At the entrance hall I was greeted by beautiful cherry blossoms in a big vase. I was so surprised because as far as I knew, no cherry had started to bloom except some whitcombs and Autumnalis in downtown. The wife told me that she cut some branches of cherry trees in their garden on Friday, March 6th and kept them at the warmest room in her house. The husband said there were several kinds of cherry trees in their garden, the gardener cut branches of several trees and the branches at the back were Akebono. I couldn’t recognise Akebono brunches. I couldn’t have enough time to find extra petals. All I could see were there were at least 2 kinds of cherry and all of them looked whiter than Akebono should be at the blooming time. The wife also told me that if you wanted to bloom at the end of February or beginning of March, you should have cut the branches 1 month earlier.
Not necessarily, as the bud development must be able to support the forced blossoms in a vase.... I would think that a week or two is plenty... that is my experience with Kwanzan and other spring flowering Prunus . They are beautiful to have in of doors.