Japanese Flowering Cherry

Japanese flowering cherry is the ornamental cherry of park and boulevard, the one responsible for the pink clouds that define spring in Western Washington. The cultivars are the story: 'Kwanzan' (syn. 'Kanzan') with its double, deep pink flowers on an upright, vase-shaped tree; 'Shirotae' (Mount Fuji) with double white flowers on a spreading, horizontal form; 'Shogetsu' with fringed, pale pink doubles on pendulous branches. There are dozens more, each bred and selected over centuries in Japan for a specific flower form, color, and tree habit.

In Western Washington, Japanese flowering cherries are everywhere, lining streets, filling parks, anchoring residential front yards. They bloom spectacularly for two to three weeks in April and then largely disappear into the background. The fall color is typically yellowish and unremarkable. Several diseases are tracked, including bacterial canker, brown rot, and various borers. Most Japanese flowering cherries are grafted onto rootstock that can produce suckers. The trees are often relatively short-lived, twenty to thirty years in urban conditions. For two weeks each spring, nothing in the landscape matches them. Accept the tree as a seasonal performer rather than a year-round workhorse, and plant something with fall color nearby to carry the other nine months.