Spring has arrived, at last.
Cherry blossoms are reaching peak bloom now across parks and streets in New York City and northern New Jersey, bringing joy as the metro area emerges from a cold, dark winter.
“You cannot deny the objective beauty of it,” said Navé Strauss, New York City’s director of tree planting. After two major snowstorms and bitterly cold temps he said, “this is a great moment for people to be like, ‘Oh, right. Nature is beautiful. Nature is restorative.’
“We can go out and really experience the beauty of it, even in an urban environment.”
The region is home to multiple varieties of cherry trees. Two of the earliest-blooming cherry varieties — Okame and Yoshino — hit peak bloom this week.
The Okame produces deep pink blossoms, and is the first to open each year. The Yoshino, the paler variety famous for lining the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is just days behind.
Later this month, a third variety, the Kanzan, will close out the season in showier fashion with its complex, compound blooms, Strauss said. “They remind me more of a rose, where there's petals on top of petals on top of petals.”
We can have some more at Brooklyn Botanic Garden with it's array of cherry blossoms.
Peak bloom in the region is expected to hit around Thursday through next weekend. Barring any severe storms, Strauss said park visitors can expect a week-and-a-half to two weeks of blooms.
The best place to view the blossoms is in Newark’s Branch Brook Park. The park, which is run by Essex County, boasts thousands more cherry trees than the nation’s capital and is the largest collection in the country. (And, because it’s not Washington, D.C. there are good restaurants nearby for when you’re done peeping blossoms.)
This year also happens to mark Branch Brook’s 50th annual Bloomfest, a full day of entertainment scheduled for April 19. The park has other blossom-related activities planned for the run up, too.
For New Yorkers who are loath to cross the Hudson River, Central Park has its own vast collection of cherry trees. K Satterthwaite, the tree care manager at the Central Park Conservancy, said the reservoir is the best-known spot, with cherry trees flowering on both the east and west sides. But a personal favorite, Satterthwaite said, is the area around the Alice in Wonderland statue, between the boathouse and Conservatory water.
Sheep Meadow has what Satterthwaite called “iconic” Higan cherries with their dramatic, weeping branches, “and that's a great place for people to congregate if they want space in a nice, big lawn.” The Great Lawn is also ringed with cherries, including a type that sometimes blooms twice a year and is one of Satterthwaite’s favorites.
All the locations are marked on the Conservancy’s cherry blossom tracker and they’re all currently in bloom. A grand finale, however, is still on the way. When the Kanzans bloom, she said, “it's just a cascade of pink petals in the breeze.”
If you’re trying to miss the crowds, Satterthwaite recommends going on weekday mornings, roughly between 9 and noon.
Of course, New Yorkers needn’t limit themselves to Central Park. Strauss has plenty of other suggestions:
- Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, along the Grand Central Parkway just south of the Queens Museum, where Okame and Yoshino trees grow in a large grove
- Brooklyn Botanic Garden, with a well-known Yoshino collection
- Along the waterfront of Hunter's Point South Park in Long Island City
- Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden on Staten Island
- Sakura Park in Manhattan and Union Square, where Kanzan trees will bloom later this month
And in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a newer destination is still coming into its own. In 2024, Strauss's team planted more than 100 young cherry trees toward the western end of the park, which sits on a hill overlooking southern Manhattan. The grove is already pretty, he said, but this is just the beginning.
"We believe it's going to be a destination," Strauss said, “ a publicly available destination, not behind any gates. … We think it's going to be awesome.”
Many New Yorkers, especially those in the outer boroughs, don’t need to go to a park to see some blossoms at all. On streets where utility lines run aboveground, the city deliberately plants smaller ornamental trees, including cherry trees, that won't grow into conflict with the wires.
”So if you're lucky enough to be walking around over the next two or three weeks, in any of the outer boroughs,” Strauss said, “you'll probably see cherry blossoms in bloom just on your regular old streetscape.”
Tender age in bloom.
