The 100 Akebono in David Lam Park are starting to blossom now. Even the sole Somei Yoshino is in full bud but a bit behind most of the Akebono. With a couple more days of warmth and sun, the usual spectacular display will appear.
The 3 Akebono at Cooper's Park just west of the north end of Cambie Bridge on the seawall are starting to blossom as are the row of Akebono along the Marinaside townhomes.
That was Friday; I didn't come on the weekend. Today, Monday, is Peak Bloom of the 'Akebono' blossoms at Burrard Station (Art Phillips Park). My twig on which I was showing buds and pedicel length every day has all flowers open, as do most of the trees. I was told that they did not appear to be in full bloom yesterday morning. The four new trees at the street opened ahead of the others.
One day later, 'Akebono' at Burrard Station - I couldn't help myself. Somebody there showed me how she did artful portrait blossom photos on her iPhone. I don't know if I can do the same on my Samsung or not, but I tried the portrait thing. Only a few of them sort-of worked.
I was reminded of the Cherry Blossom afternoon tea at the Hotel Vancouver's Notch8 restaurant. I'm glad I asked the maître d' if I could have a look, so she escorted me. I'd never have found the room behind this bookcase. It's not offered on Mondays or Tuesdays.
The Akebono at Coopers Park, Marinaside seawall and Yaletown House are now in full bloom on a grey morning and so are the Shirotae in Helmcken Park. Even the Beatty Mews Kanzen are awakening with a few bronze leaves on display pre bud.
This afternoon at Burrard & Georgia (the Burrard Skytrain (well at this station, it’s a vintage CPR railroad tunnel below ground) — @wcutler has been tracking these trees which name are they? (See photo) the 2nd is outside the heritage Anglican Christ Church Cathedral at same intersection the sakura tea @wcutler posted above is at Hotel Vancouver behind photographer
All of the Akebono (about 100) in David Lam Park and the lone Somei Yoshino are in full bloom on a grey damp morning. Hopefully they hang on until the lighting display event next week and if they do, the 3 evening event should be great.
Looks like another good location to compare ‘Akebono’ with ‘Somei-yoshino’. I didn’t know about the loner.
Lots of ‘Akebono’ on West Georgia Street and lots of people enjoying them this morning. Nice to see. Pair of side by side blossoms with petaloids, too.
The youngster is 'Akebono' - did I answer that? Between that and the corner at Georgia are two larger 'Ichiyo' that are at around 50% blooming now.
Here is another good time for tree comparisons - it's so easy to distinguish 'Shogetsu' and 'Shiro-fugen' when the buds are opening. These were taken at the courtyard on West Georgia just west of Bute. 'Shogetsu' open earlier, with green leaves. 'Shiro-fugen' have a brownish tinge to their buds, and the leaves are bronze. Sometimes 'Shirotae' are still around to cause some confusion, but their flower stems are generally shorter than for 'Shogetsu' (giving no impression of moonlight on pine trees), they have fewer petals not as neatly layered, and the flowers are well past their best-looking, now withered with dried-out brown spotting. I couldn't bring myself to take a blossom photo here at The Lions on the south side of West Georgia between Jervis and Broughton, technically in the West End neighbourhood.
'Kanzan' are opening quickly now. This tree is on Bute north of West Georgia. Note that this and the 'Shogetsu' and 'Shiro-fugen' in the above posting are late-season trees.
Kanzan in bloom all over downtown now - Beatty Mews, Victory Square, Vancouver Playhouse, Pacific Place Landmark 1 (this is on a strata back courtyard but open to casual viewing)
The Beatty Mews Kanzan canopy were looking great throughout today. Best sun is at 3 pm. There are some shots from up on the walkway looking down at the tops of the trees. Blossoms are full and just starting to fall. As you might see, there are others enjoying the bountiful pink blossoms in the calm sun.
Burrard Station 'Akebono' trees, first flower I'm still keeping my chart, though it has pretty well demonstrated that it doesn't indicate anything about peak bloom. Yesterday, March 5, I saw the first flowers, which look the same today. Maybe the date of budburst would have been more useful, but I have not kept track of that. FWIW, budburst started yesterday; there are only small bits of pink showing on some of the buds. The first photo is one of the original trees; second photo is one of the young replacement trees along the street.
Speaking of unreliable indicators, the US National Park Service has put up a page about the 'Yoshino' cherries on the National Mall in Washington, DC. They have a chart showing the number of days between six blooming stages for those trees over the past 20 years. They call the stage I have shown above the third stage - extension of florets. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/cherryblossom/bloom-watch.htm The difference in the the number of days between extension of florets to peak bloom is interesting - it varies from 6 days to 16 or 19 days. (They call Peak Bloom 70% of flowers open, the same metric we are using for our trees at Maple Grove Park, which was one of the locations used in the International Cherry Blossom Prediction Competition (Predictions from the 2025 International Cherry Blossom Prediction Competition! - International Cherry Blossom Prediction Competition.)
The tree in posting #497 is entirely dead except for the twig photographed. Twelve dates later, that is the only green twig on that tree. But the flowers on the younger trees are still there. All the trees are now I assume at what the stage the NPS site mentioned in the posting just above calls Peduncle Extension. On this umbel flower configuration, I understand these stems to be pedicels, but anyway, the stems are visible now, some more and some less than 1 cm.
Burrard Station, four days later. What NPS calls the "Puffy White" phase on their Yoshino cherries, we would call "Puffy Pale Pink" on 'Akebono', as the bud colour is a distinguishing feature between those two. The PPP phase is just starting, as you can see a lot of still dark pink buds. Today is Saturday. The forecast for the next six days is for rain, but temperatures above 10C degrees every day, up to 15 degrees on Wednesday. I expect to see these at peak bloom before the week is out.
