After a stretch of pleasant, warm weather here in Toronto, High Park’s cherry blossom trees are finally entering the last few weeks before their annual, colourful display draws crowds of spectators in from all over the province.
Local cherry blossom expert, Sakura Steve, who regularly shares updates on his website, Sakura in High Park, confirmed in his latest post on April 18 that the park’s cherry blossom buds have entered stages three and four, bringing them even closer to peak bloom.
Alongside the warmer temperatures, we’ve also received our fair share of rainfall, although luckily, the influx of precipitation doesn’t seem to have had any negative impacts on the trees so far.
Whether the buds bloom early or not depends largely on the weather, and unfortunately, the colder temperatures Toronto is expected to see on Monday and Tuesday could potentially slow down the progress of the trees.
“The warmer weather we’ve experienced over the past week has greatly helped the sakura cherry blossom trees throughout High Park to progress into Stages 3 and, in some cases, Stage 4. Stage 3 is when we begin to see the tips of the buds expand and expose each of their individual florets. These florets will at first appear green and bronze, but as they develop and emerge from the buds, they take on a dark pink hue,” Sakura Steve wrote in his latest update.
“Once the florets extend even further out of the blossom buds, they begin to move into Stage 4. This is when you can clearly see the elongated shape of each floret with its individual stem.”
In a few isolated cases, Sakura Steve says you can actually see that some of the tips are showing white petals, which indicates that they’re waiting for their cue to begin opening during the final stages.
Despite the cold weather ahead, the expert notes that the buds are still fairly protected from the cold at this point and that there shouldn’t be any significant impact on their development. However, a dip in temperatures this week does mean that there likely won’t be any early bloom this year, unless we happen to get a few more days of 2o C or above weather.
Overall, Sakura Steve predicts that the bloom in High Park this year will begin near the end of April and continue into the first week of May.
Meanwhile, the High Park Nature Centre reported in its April 17 update that the florets of the cherry blossom trees in High Park have entered stage 2 of the bloom development process.
Over the past few years, bloom timing in High Park has varied drastically, occurring on May 3 in 2025, on April 22 in 2024, and on April 20 in 2023.
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