When Is Cherry Blossom Season? A Complete Guide to Blooming Times

Cherry blossoms are native to the temperate Himalayan rim region of the Northern Hemisphere and grow all over the world, mainly in Japan. The most famous cherry blossoms in China are those at Wuhan University! So how long is the cherry blossom season?

The Cherry Blossom Season

The cherry blossom season is relatively short. In Japan there is a folk saying: “cherry blossoms for 7 days,” meaning that a single cherry blossom takes about 7 days from opening to withering, and a whole cherry tree takes about 16 days from first bloom to full fall, giving cherry blossoms their characteristic of blooming and falling at the same time.

Blooming times of different cherry blossoms:

1. Yunnan early cherry: native to Yunnan, it blooms from late February to early March. Flowers appear before leaves, deep red, with about 25 petals, a flower diameter of about 2.5 cm, the flowers half-open and drooping, with red sepals. Young leaves are tea-brown.

2. Tokyo cherry: generally Tokyo cherry blossoms mostly bloom from late March to mid-April, but in recent years global warming has advanced the blooming time. Warming of the Pacific climate also causes the flowers to be blown down and scattered after opening.

3. Mountain cherry: a plant of the rose family and genus Prunus, from subtropical to temperate zones, highly ornamental when in bloom. The mountain cherry is a native plant of Taiwan, China, a deciduous small tree whose leaves do not emerge until the flowering season is almost over. Corymbose or racemose inflorescences, with white or pale pink flowers. It blooms from April to May.

4. Yoshino cherry: a widely popular ornamental plant, planted extensively throughout the temperate regions of the world. The Yoshino cherry was introduced to North America and Europe in 1902, and in Japan's Kanto region it blooms from about late March to early April.

5. Oshima cherry: a representative wild cherry, with a tree height of up to 15 m. It blooms in mid-March, with flowers and leaves appearing together. The flowers are white, single-petaled, and open in corymbs. The calyx tube is long and bell-shaped, the sepals are lanceolate with serrated edges, and the flower as a whole is hairless. Many horticultural cherry varieties are derived from the Oshima cherry.