Ten or twelve 'Ukon' on apartment building property on Yew at 43rd. they're past their prime now, looking quite white. There do not seem to be any green stripes on the blossoms. On the same property to the north of the 'Ukon' are several quite young 'Akebono' and another group of somewhat older 'Akebono'. In the back of the building are three young 'Shirofugen'. The 'Shirofugen' at the Kerrisdale Community Centre at Yew, here from 43td, are looking splendid.
Well no-one would consider these community centre 'Jugatsu-zakura' (as we're now calling 'Autumnalis') to be in bloom at the end of November, but most of them have one or two branches with several open flowers. While I'm still hoping it gets decided that there's no difference between this and 'Autumnalis Rosea', I'm also still running the line that these have white buds and 'Autumnalis Rosea' have pink buds.
I was with Lena, whom I met on a festival walk last weekend. She came to my meetup group walk last week, and I dragged her along to see the 'Yokihi' on the way to giving her a ride to the bus. But then, I didn't know which tree it was. No-one including me has mentioned two trees. Lena and I couldn't figure out if they looked the same or different. I think tree 2 is the one that has always been photographed. Tree 1 Tree 2
I have really wanted a picture of Jugatsu-zakura so have checked around the Kerrisdale Community Centre fairly regularly since November. Today I saw some individual little blooms which were rather out of reach of the capabilities of my camera but I thought the first-in-the-book cultivar should be recorded while all those Whitcombs and Okames and Accolades are bursting into bloom. Without the blossoms and leaves, the Jugatsu-Zakura trees are handsome, anyway. Just a little further south on Yew, between 43rd and 44th, there are some old warrior Accolades which simply produce the sweetest blossoms. I know they've been recorded many times but I don't believe their portraits have shown up yet in this neighborhood this year.
Wendy Cutler and I drove around on Sunday. We found a Beni-shidare in the front yard at W49th and McCleery, and a large Accolade overhanging the back alley on the same property. The Accolades on W50th are looking spectacular.
Took a wonderful drive (and 400 photos) yesterday. These Akebono cherries are at the corner of SW Marine Drive and Yew (Maple Grove Park).
I think these are plum trees (vertical bark, lollipop blossoms) that still look great but have fooled me in the past as I cycled by in the past. Marine Drive is generally plums early.
Did you put in the right link? These, in the posting just before yours, are for sure 'Akebono', from Maple Grove Park. I can't speak for Ruth's other 397 photos, but the plums are all quite purple now.
Certainly not the best day for glorious photos but the many different cultivars within a few blocks of the Kerrisdale Community Centre made today's walk there enjoyable. The Tai-haku on Balsam which stretch from 41st to 43rd are wonderful cumulus-like puffs of lovely big snowy white flowers. Today they form a canopy which almost doesn't require an umbrella. Tomorrow afternoon in the sun they should still be in prime condition. Perhaps someone will be able to replace these photos which suffered from rain drops on the lens.
Further down Balsam at 47th is one of the city's few Washi-no-o trees. In the rain there was no detectable perfume but the eagle tail petals were evident. It seemed a lot of the fallen petals on the ground were intact flowers. It's more open habit made an umbrella really desirable....
Ukon cherry at 43rd and yew, group of maybe 6 trees, n/w corner. lovely greenish colour to flower. Even in the rain.
Shirotae cherry corner of 45th and Mackenzie. NE corner. Nice Small tree. Too cold to detect much of an Almond Scent, but a lovely blush pink opening to white.
Young 'Snow Goose', with very strongly ascending branches on the NE side of 49th and McLeery. The flowers show the star of the green sepals in behind the petals, like a ghost star! The red centers are magnificent, you can even see the anthers and stigma in the close up.
While on our wonderful walk today there were an old pair of Somei-yoshino's along 50th ave. While admiring them, an Anna's hummingbird flew in amongst the flowers darting here and there. You could briefly see the flash of purple on the hummingbird's throat which matched the flower color beautifully. Unfortunately this was not captured on film, but a great experience all the same!
We found some new trees for our map today. We didn't actually walk over to the 'Akebono' trees at the far end of the block of Larch north of 46th, but they were attractive from a distance. 'Kanzan' not yet in bloom are in the foreground. On 45th at Elm are two 'Akebono' what, teenagers? Nice-looking trees. Edited - there doesn't seem to be any 46th, but they are before 47th. Here is a little 'Shirotae', adding it for the map, since there weren't any other of these on our walk. The point of the walk was to see neighbouring 'Yae-beni-shidare' on 45th and Mackenzie, which I never thought to photograph, but they have been featured here before. We found another large neighbouring set of these trees, though, in back yards, visible from the lane west of McCleery south of 47th. Here are two 'Snow Goose' on McCleary at 49th. The rest of these have appeared before in this thread. Here are flowers for the 'Beni-shidare' tree that Janet posted on March 10. These are still looking amazingly nice. The first photo is more to show off the festival umbrella. These are the two 'Yae-beni-shidare' on 50th west of Marine Crescent, mid-block, peeking over the hedge. And the 'Washi-no-o' nearby on the same street.
Back in Kerrisdale today to visit the 'Yokihi'. A pretty tree indeed and worth the drive. The blossoms are high and have a frilly edge which is probably more evident in the photograph in the book (p.87) than in my picture.
Quite close to the glorious 'Yae-beni-shidare' neighbours on 45th near Mackenzie is a 'Beni-shidare' on Macdonald and 44th. While it is past its prime as far as producing blossoms is concerned, the blooms are not double which makes me drop the 'Yae'. I will happily stand corrected if I'm wrong.
Cherry spotting becomes like a disease. I thought that this is kind of overwhelming as there are so many trees all over the city so I just thought I should limit myself to my own South Cambie Riley Park neighbourhood where the trees aren't necessarily as well documented but I keep stumbling into interesting trees wherever I go. When I came out of my yoga class Sunday late afternoon I spotted two lovely trees, quite different from the nearby Kanzans. Checking the neighbourhood map I went to a link in that vicinity just east of Vine on the north side of 41st. And two small Shiro fugens were mentioned. So that was what I had seen only bigger and six years older.
The number of cherry trees becomes overwhelming so I thought I would limit myself to my own neighbourhood which extends from Riley Park to South Cambie but once again a tree caught my interest as I was going to a yoga class. After class I went back down Vine for a closer look and identified it correctly (thanks, Wendy) as a Ukon between 49th and 47th on Vine Street on the west side of street-6405 Vine Street
Here are four locations long past blooming, but posted to get them on the map. 'Kanzan', 45th between Maple and Cypress, mostly on the south side. 'Kanzan', 44th between Maple and Cypress (seen here from Cypress), both sides 'Beni-shidare', maybe, or maybe 'Yae-beni-shidare', something like that, on 43rd, south side at East Boulevard. I hope someone looks for them next year. 'Kanzan', 45th west from Yew, both sides
