Sakura Watch March 8, 2020 - The Toronto cherry blossom season has officially begun! Wonderful warm weather this past weekend offered the perfect opportunity to explore High Park and see just how the trees have survived the winter so far. Overall, my anticipations quickly turned to exhilaration as I began to see a treasure trove of healthy-looking cherry blossoms buds on nearly all of the sakura trees. This was an incredible start for the first visit of 2020!

Watch my first visit in the latest YouTube update below:

Milder Winter Helped

Toronto this year has had overall a less harsh winter than in recent years. The milder temperatures mixed with more precipitation, in the form of both snow and rain, has been a significant factor in helping the trees to survive and suffer less stress. This has resulted in seeing branches full of well-shaped, round cherry blossom buds, with many of them in beautiful deep bronze colours.

Have a look at the photos taken this Sunday showing just how good the buds look this early in the seaon:

Early bloomers around the world

The last few weeks have seen headlines from around the world showing cherry blossoms blooming earlier than usual due to the warming weather patterns. Vancouver began its bloom in late February! Tokoyo and other parts of Japan are already predicting their blossoms will bloom a few days earlier than last year.

So how will Toronto and High Park cherry blossoms fair this year?

It’s far too early to accurately predict and usually requires a number of visits for me to get a handle on the pace of development as well as correlating how they will react to the ever-unpredictable weather. We did have an early-season back in 2012, so time will tell. But for now, all signs are pointing to a possible bloom at some point between late April to early May.

I hope you join me in following the blog for a brand new sakura cherry blossom season and watch for more updates and info to come soon.