A guide to New York City’s blooming cherry blossoms
More than 40,000 trees will be showy for month; here’s where to find them
After months of dreary weather and bare branches, it’s finally cherry blossom season in New York City.
This means that more than 40,000 ornamental cherry trees around the city will be bursting with white and pink petals for the next month, drawing thousands of people outside to enjoy them.
Here’s an overview of what kind of cherry blossoms you can find in New York City, when they’ll be in bloom and where you can find them.
When is peak cherry blossom season?
Once a tree starts blooming, it’ll hold its blossoms for about 10 days. But when, exactly, each tree begins to flower depends on a mix of daylight and temperature, which is hard to predict. Most of New York’s cherry trees are in bloom by mid-april, though certain types bud a bit earlier or later.
Elizabeth Peters, director of digital media at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, said her team updates its Cherrywatch tracker by checking each cherry tree in the morning to determine whether it’s in prebloom, first bloom (when about 10 percent of its flowers are open), peak bloom (when about half of its flowers are open) or post-peak bloom (when about 10 percent of the blooms are left).
“Every time a friend asks me about Cherrywatch, like, ‘Oh, when is peak bloom,’ I don’t like that question,” she said. “It’s not like we’re waiting for that moment where the largest number of trees are blooming, because each moment is special.” 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 late March, 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.
Jennifer Greenfeld, an assistant commissioner for the Parks Department, said it takes care of thousands of ornamental cherry trees.
“They’re really great trees, because they don’t get super high and you can plant them under utility lines,” Greenfeld said. “We actually have these long-term contracts with nurseries that grow these trees specially for us in New York City.”
Though the branches of cherry trees naturally hang low, which wouldn’t be suitable for city streets, certain nurseries train the trees’ branches to grow higher.
Where are the best places to see cherry blossoms in New York City?
By filtering for “‘Cultivar’ 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, the Riverside Park Cherry Walk has cherry trees that run alongside the path from 100th Street to 125th Street, and Marcus Garvey Park, in Harlem, has a smaller walkway of cherry trees near the entrance on Fifth Avenue and 124th Street.
Most of the cherry trees in Central Park are found between 72nd and 96th streets. But the park has lots of other popular spots listed on its website. Downtown, check out Union Square and Madison Square Park.