While I was looking at these trees, Eagle and Tina Chiang were doing the same. Following the centuries-old saying from Kobayashi Issa: "There is no stranger under the cherry tree", we had a little chat. It turns out they are members of the Green Club, started by Joseph Lin, who many years ago started a list of cherry blossom locations (we have posted his photo in memory at Cherry Scouts - Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival (vcbf.ca)). Eagle sent me the outstanding blossom photo here and gave me permission to post it. He and Tina show up in my photo.
The four trees of 'Kiku-zakura' are in full bloom on the north side of Turner, just east of Nanaimo, at April 20, 2024—true to the mid-April bloom date in the Ornamental Cherries in Vancouver handbook. The bloom on one tree is more advanced than the others which still have buds opening. One of the others, is gamely putting on a good show, despite carrying on its Prunus avium attachment.
Oh no, I forgot to visit the 'Kiku-zakura' when I was in the neighbourhood. Well, I was overwhelmed by the 'Shiro-fugen' at Callister Park. They are totally open, very white, and just thinking of starting to change to pink, with just bits of fluorescence in some of the flowers. About three blocks away on Oxford at Pentiction is an arch of 'Kanzan' that should be a festival favourite, as it's easy to take in after visiting the park above, and their blooming overlaps.
We haven't seen the tunnel of 'Akebono' on Graveley between Nootka and Windermere since 2022 when there was construction on the street, and we thought the trees had the canopy pruned away to make room for the crane. The street still looks nice, but the canopy is better on E. 6th. It wasn't all that busy when I was there on April 3. I mentioned in some previous year the 'Akebono' trees on the median along 1st Ave on both sides of the intersection, for several blocks, but they are not on the map. I was driving as I was trying to photograph these. Here is a pair on 1st at Lillooet.
So there I was driving along 1st Avenue at 7:15pm, no time to stop, but I saw what looked like one of the 'Akebono' trees in full bloom, on the corner of the median at Kaslo Street. On my way home at 10pm, I stopped to see if it really wasn't some other cultivar, as all the other trees were showing buds still deep pink. But no, it's just an over-eager 'Akebono' bloomer. I had passed by earlier on the south side of the tree, which has more fully opened flowers than on the north side. This might be the first tree of this cultivar to get to full bloom in Vancouver. Across the intersection, on the median on the east side of Kaslo, is another 'Akebono' at the same still tight dark pink flowers as the others on that stretch. It has almost no open flowers. In the first photo below, you can see across the street the tree I posted just above. The surrounding houses are 2-story, and there don't seem to be any trees that would be casting shadows on the several blocks of 'Akebono' trees not yet in bloom I was so lucky it wasn't even raining when I was photographing these. I drove through a heavy downpour on my way home from here.
