Viewed March 19/24 @ Agronomy Road & Main Mall (approx 2 blocks west of Hospital and Pharmaceutical Sciences faculty buildings) Take your Compass Card & it’s fun to take the 68 Translink small community bus around the vast and scenic campus (starts and ends at the major Translink bus transit Center near the big old Memorial gymnasium with stops along the route - drives past BOTH Nitobe AND the main botanical garden )
March 22/24 Friday blossoms at the Translink TROLLEY bus loop (for people of the 1980s - this was where all transit busses looped around and the steamy window coffee shop was in the middle of the long oval ) so today - look for the overhead bus trolley wires at the west end of University Blvd, and these nice trees - oh and an equally pretty magnolia
This row of Shirotoe at the back of Purdy Pavillion. They were tight in bud on Wednesday, but today they are starting to emerge. Lovely soft pink bud with that beautiful spring green new foliage growth. No scent that I noticed, but it was quite rainy when taking these pics this afternoon! Maybe tomorrow there will be some scent in the sunshine that is promised!
Not too sure what the third tree is - located close to the two o-yama-zakura in previous post. Sargent hybrid? It’s not on the map.
Akebono? on North side of Agronomy. But the trees are in very poor condition. They are also pinker and I am wondering are they actually Akebono? or is it the extra sun exposure they get that has made them pinker compared to the trees across the street in the shade?
Today - March 26th - UBC Thunderbird Lane west of “East Mall” near “bean around the world” coffee shop (the building that used to be white barn but torn down and this building now - it’s close to Forestry faculty bldg) EDIT to add - the 68 Translink campus bus roars past these trees over speed bumps — hold on to your vertebrate :) I jest - so - if you’re keen to view and go on transit - 44 from Burrard & Georgia (outside Tiffany’s gems) then transfer over to the 68 at the huge transit loop (not trolley loop) at UBC — 68 goes around the vast campus with various on/off stops by request incl Nitobe and Botanical gardens
March 25, 2024 [Beside Chan Centre] This is my favourite 'Somei-yoshino' with a graceful outline, exuding a mature elegance. I wonder if the shape is natural or the three trees were placed strategically and pruned to create the effect of a single wide tree when they got moved. [Lower Mall & University Blvd.] Most festive setting with mixture of 'Somei-yoshino' and 'Akebono' trees in one area. 'Somei-yoshino' 'Akebono' [Student Union Blvd, west of Wesbrook Mall] Most of these young 'Rancho' trees were at about 30-40% bloom. [Botganical Garden, parking lot] It was Monday, which is Botanical Garden's closure day, so I only took photos of 'Mikuruma-gaeshi' over the fence, and 'Tai-Haku' outside the fence. 'Tai-Haku' trees barely have flowers. {Edited} 'Pandora' (I mistakenly referred to this as 'Mikuruma-gaeshi' earlier.) seemed to be in full bloom.
I think the tree you are calling ‘Mikuruma-gaeshi’ is ‘Pandora’ (Last year I thought the ‘Pandora’ on Sunshine Coast was a plum…it’s easy to get confused when everything everywhere is blooming all at once)
Yes, Wendy also pointed that out. Since I couldn't get close to it, I tried to check the photo of the tag from last year, and got the wrong one. I've edited the posting. Thank you . ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡
I almost forgot to check out the 'Ito-kukuri' at Cecil Green Park. It's not fully in bloom, but there are flowers. That seems to be my usual timing here, good enough though to catch the pink veins in the petals. Here is a magical 'Kanzan' mazzard (sweet cherry) rootstock combo. The 'Somei-yoshino' still looks surprisingly good. The 3rd and 4th photos demonstrate the almost fuzzy pedicels. The two 'Tai-haku' are in bloom.
Douglas Justice told me last weekend that he thinks that name is wrong. It will be renamed Oshima-zakura.
Douglas Justice led a tour last weekend for the VCBF at Nitobe Memorial Garden. The late season cherries were in bloom, except for 'Kiku-zakura', on which buds were fattening up, and 'Shiro-fugen', of which one tree had enough open flowers to see what it was going to do, one tree had just a very few open flowers, and one tree had no open flowers. But both 'Shogetsu' were fully open. The 'Taki-nioi' was a little past its prime. And the younger 'Somei-yoshino' was inappropriately holding onto its early mid-season flowers. Well, the older one near the entrance was doing that as well, but I have no photo to prove it. This is an unusual year in which 'Akebono' have mostly lost all their flowers, but 'Somei-yoshino' around town still have a lot of theirs, and the flowers are still white. I have posted all my photos from UBC Botanical Garden at https://forums.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/threads/ornamental-cherries-at-ubcbg-2024.104159/.
Here is an updated map of the cherry trees at Nitobe Memorial Garden, drawn up by Douglas Justice at UBCBG, in consultation with Ryo Sugiyama, Nitobe’s main curator and horticulturist since 2010. The only change from last year is that an 'Akebono' was corrected to 'Accolade'.
