I visited the UBC Botanical Garden (around the parking lot only) for the first time. I was amazed to see a variety of cultivars at one location. Thanks to Wendy, I'm learning a lot!! Umineko Ichiyo is starting to bloom. Accolade Mikuruma-gaeshi Interesting to see Ojochin starts blooming from the bottom. Surugadai-nioi seems way past its peak. Caught the last surviving cluster of Whitcomb. Pandora
Two weeks makes a big difference in cherry season. The cultivars that @tknd (Taka) showed in bud are already finishing up. Photos are from April 23. 'Ichiyo' 'Mikuruma-gaeshi' 'Ojochin' 'Surugadai-nioi' is truly finished now, but there's one cherry.
'Ukon' has a very yellow appearance as befits its name that means "turmeric'. The 'Gyoiko' tree just looks green. I forgot to take a habit photo. First I thought I'd missed the flowers, then I thought they weren't open yet, and then I started to see flowers, though there are still many buds yet to open. The flowers are much larger than last year when I was so worried about them, though they're not quite the size of the ones on its parent in Stanley Park. Usually, 'Ukon' flowers appear most yellow when they have just opened, but these appeared white and green, nothing suggesting yellow. I'm not finding that my photos support what I'm saying, but I'm not going to change my story.
Prunus maackii is grown more for its striking bark, which is almost all covered up here, than for its flowers, but that's ok. It's a good-looking tree.
The winner for autumn colour on November 24 is 'Mikuruma-gaeshi'. Coming in a close second is 'Surugadai-nioi', though the leaves were not very attractive up close. The Wharton Grove was looking a little concerning, but the soil is just being refilled. These are 'Umineko'.
Some of us scouts who in the grand scheme of things have very little botanical background behind us are incredulous that the small tree labelled 'Ito-kukuri' could really be that, when it looks nothing like other trees of that cultivar posted on the forums and looks exactly (to us of limited experience) like the 'Ojochin' trees next to it. Last year, Douglas Justice responded to me: "I know the ‘Ito-kukuri’ in the Wharton Grove looks odd. I put it down to juvenility (it was originally from tissue culture). The tree came from a donor who purchased it at the BCIT sale, so really, it couldn’t be anything else. Give it a few years." Somewhat in support of that is the statement in a neighbourhood posting at https://forums.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/threads/grandview-woodland.36523/page-6#post-381224, the owner of an 'Ito-kukuri' "purchased 4 or 5 years ago" told Anne that the flowers the previous year "were not spectacular like this year". I'm going to interpret that to mean that even in the 3rd or 4th year after they planted their tree, it may have still had single flowers and was not producing flowers that have their adult characteristics. Of course, she might have just meant that there were not so many flowers. We don't always know how good at interviewing we need to be. On the other hand, this UBCBG tree was accessioned in 2013. Is that the date of the tissue culture, or is it now a 10-year-old tree. and how long do we have to wait for the adult flowers? I put together a set of comparison photos last year; some are posted above, but I am going to post the comparison set here. I'm posting this in 2023, but these are photos from 2022. Tree labelled 'Ito-kukuri' Tree labelled 'Ojochin'
