Sakura Watch, March 12, 2016 - Less snow, more buds were the seen throughout the park as a week of well above seasonal warm weather has all but made snow a mere memory from only a week ago. There are plenty of buds to see throughout the park, and I'm happy to say the trees are looking healthy with a lot of well-formed buds! This bodes well for the weeks ahead as we continue to track the progress.

Many people are asking for predictions on the bloom and every year I try my best to pinpoint the dates by looking at how the buds grow and develop, judging their size, shape, colour and weather conditions are all helpful clues in determining the dates. It's safe to say we are still in the early stages and from what I've seen so far it is definitely going to be after Easter, and so now we are on track for a typical bloom to occur in the later weeks of April and early May.

Over the next couple weeks, the dates should become more apparent as we have at least a few more comparisons to see how fast the buds are developing so stay tuned for more updates next week!