It’s that time of year when Toronto starts watching the trees. Across the city, thousands of cherry blossoms are on the verge of blooming — and once they do, peak bloom will likely last less than a week.
Perhaps no one is watching them more closely than Steve Joniak, a Toronto-based cherry blossom enthusiast affectionately known as Sakura Steve. Since 2012, he has tracked the annual blooms and provides updates on his website for the tens of thousands of visitors who flock to High Park to see them each year.
With his help, here’s what you need to know about when cherry blossoms will bloom in Toronto, where to find them and how to catch peak bloom before it’s gone.
Toronto is home to more than 3,000 cherry blossom, or sakura, trees, many of them in High Park. Beyond it, several other notable groves are scattered across the city. Centennial Park has 463 trees, while Broadacres Park, York University and Exhibition Place have around 100 each.
Knowing where the trees bloom is one thing — the real question is when. It’s difficult to predict bloom time more than 10 days in advance, however estimates can be made by closely watching their development, which unfolds in six stages.
While Joniak says the groves generally bloom in sync, the trees at Robarts Library are usually the first to flower, due to slightly warmer temperatures in the city’s core.
“(The Robarts grove is) always a great guide,” he says, adding that High Park will start blooming in about two to three days after that.
High Park is home to more than 2,000 sakura trees, the oldest of which are more than 60 years old. The largest grove can be found on the west side of the park, near Grenadier Pond. Joniak’s favourite tree is one of the few remaining sakura originally gifted to the city in 1959, which sits at the top of a hill across from the Grenadier Café.
“That’s one of the original trees, and you can tell because it’s one of the largest in the park.”
So when can we expect peak bloom this year? Generally, warmer weather in winter and early spring can encourage earlier blooms, while cooler temperatures may delay them. This year, Toronto saw a colder-than-average winter, but Joniak says the weather is turning.
“It seems temperatures are now in the ideal range — above 10 degrees most days — which will help get the trees back on track. We should see bloom toward the end of the month and into the first week of May.”
Currently, the buds are in Stage 4 of development, meaning peak bloom could arrive as early as next weekend. Once open, the flowers typically last three to 10 days. The peak bloom window begins when about 70 per cent of buds are open and ends when the petals begin to fall.
“If the weather is mild, calm and sunny, those are the ideal conditions to prolong the bloom period,” Joniak says.
While their bloom may be brief, these flowers’ short lives are part of what makes them special, embodying the Japanese philosophy of “mono no aware,” a concept that centres on the beauty of impermanence.
“They’re just so beautiful to look at,” says Joniak. “Once I see them open, then we know springtime is here.”
You can get more cherry blossom updates by visiting sakurainhighpark.com or by calling the cherry blossom hotline at 647-946-2547.
