After months of dreary weather and bare branches, it’s finally cherry blossom season in New York City.
This means that roughly 35,000 ornamental cherry trees around the city will be bursting with white and pink petals for the next month or so, drawing thousands of people outside to enjoy them.
Here’s an overview of what kind of cherry blossoms are in New York City, when they’ll bloom and where you can find them.
When is peak cherry blossom season?
Most of New York’s cherry trees are in bloom by mid-April, though for certain types it can be a bit earlier or later. Once a tree starts blooming, it’ll hold its blossoms for about 10 days.
When, exactly, each tree begins to flower can be hard to predict, and depends on the temperature and the amount of daylight it receives. Because the past few winters have been relatively mild, the city’s cherry trees have been blooming a little earlier than usual.
This year, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the first bloom was recorded on March 10, Shauna Moore, the garden’s director of horticulture, said. But peak bloom, when rows and rows of vibrant pink flowers appear on the garden’s Cherry Esplanade and Cherry Walk, is still a few weeks away.
Visitors can check CherryWatch, an online tracker run by garden staff members, to keep tabs on when the blooms might arrive. The staff members check each cherry tree every morning to determine whether it is in prebloom, first bloom, peak bloom or post-peak bloom, and update the tracker accordingly.
Ms. Moore said many people enjoy visiting the garden in the days and weeks after peak bloom, when petals fall from the trees.
“There is something so beautiful about a carpet of pink petals,” she said.
What kinds of cherry trees can be found in New York?
There are 26 types of flowering cherry trees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden alone, but the New York City Parks Department said that across the city, the three most common types are the Okame, Yoshino and Kwanzan.
The pink-flowered Okame usually begins blooming in mid- to late March or early April, but the Yoshino (which has white flowers) and the Kwanzan (which is pink and can produce up to 28 petals on each blossom) may still have flowers in late April or early May.
Matthew Morrow, the director of horticulture for the city’s Parks Department, said his team cares for between 7,000 and 8,000 cherry trees.
“We love them not only for their blooms, but because they’re relatively short, so they have a practical purpose. They grow under power lines well,” he said.
The Parks Department plants new cherry trees acquired from local nurseries almost every year, Mr. Morrow said.
His favorites are the fledgling winter flowering cherries grown from cuttings taken from a 1,000-year-old tree, called the Miharu Takizakura, in Japan. The cuttings were a gift from the Japanese government, Mr. Morrow said, and they were carefully cultivated for years before finally being planted in Dr. Ronald McNair Park and Amersfort Park in Brooklyn.
“They are still relatively small, maybe seven feet tall,” he said. “But there are these beautiful groves that are basically the children of a thousand-year-old giant in Japan. I’m quite proud of them.”
Where are the best places to see cherry blossoms in New York City?
By filtering for the species “Japanese Flowering Cherry” on the Parks Department’s New York City Street Tree Map, you can see the exact locations of thousands of cherry trees.
Sakura Park, in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, got its name from the 2,000 cherry trees that were sent to New York City’s parks from Japan in 1912. Nearby, cherry trees run alongside the Riverside Park Cherry Walk from 100th Street to 125th Street, and there’s a smaller walkway of cherry trees in Marcus Garvey Park, in Harlem, near the entrance on 124th Street and Fifth Avenue.
Most of the cherry trees in Central Park are found between 72nd Street and 96th Street. There are 35 Yoshino trees on the east side of the Central Park Reservoir (and plenty of pink cherry trees on the west side). The park has lots of other popular spots — including Cherry Hill, Pilgrim Hill, the Great Lawn and Cedar Hill — listed on its website.
Downtown, there are usually late-blooming Kwanzan trees in Union Square and Madison Square Park (where you can also spot one Yoshino tree along Fifth Avenue), and several Yoshino trees in Washington Square Park.
In the Bronx, the New York Botanical Garden has more than 200 cherry trees on its grounds, including a row of the pink weeping variety near the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. The garden’s Spring Bloom Tracker shows the current status of cherry blossoms, magnolias, daffodils, azaleas, peonies, lilacs and roses. Pelham Bay Park also has Yoshino cherry trees near the City Island Bridge.
On Randall’s Island, the trees will bloom near the island’s Urban Farm and Fields 62 and 63. And there will be an Earth Day Festival on April 20 to celebrate the various flora on the island, including the cherry trees. Roosevelt Island, between Manhattan and Queens, has its own collection of cherry trees that can be seen along the island’s West Promenade.
And if you’re up for a trip to New Jersey, the Essex County Cherry Blossom Festival is happening at Branch Brook Park in Newark from April 6 to April 14. There, people can see 5,000 cherry trees — one of the largest collections in the United States.
But if you miss some (or all) of the blossoms, don’t sweat it.
“They come, they put on a really big show, and then they fade away,” Mr. Morrow said. “It really makes you feel good to be alive, and realize our time here is fleeting and we should try and enjoy it.”
