High Park's cherry blossoms reach peak bloom today. Here's how long it will last

The cherry blossoms in High Park are expected to bloom right on schedule this week.

Peak bloom, which is when more than 70 per cent of the blossoms are open, is expected to begin on April 22 and last for about four to 10 days depending on the weather conditions.

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“We are on track, we are on schedule,” Rohith Rao, fundraising and communications director at the High Park Nature Centre, told CTV News Toronto last week. “Peak bloom typically happens between late April and early May and we are still on that schedule.”

Rao said that if the city has cooler temperatures during the peak bloom period people will be able to see the blossoms for a longer period of time, which is what happened last year.

“If it is warmer than the flowers progress quicker and you will have a relatively short period of peak bloom,” he said. “It typically lasts for a week and then you start to see the flower petals start falling off.

Japan’s ambassador to Canada, Toru-Hagiwara, gifted the city 2,000 Somei-Yoshino Sakura trees in 1959 on behalf of the citizens of Tokyo in appreciation of Toronto accepting re-located Japanese-Canadians following the Second World War.

The blossoms now typically draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to the park every year. The blooms are a great sign of the arrival of spring, Rao said.

The blossoms are heavily dependent on the late winter and early spring temperatures. Rao said that they initially progressed quickly due to very warm temperatures.

“But then later in the week, we had really cool weather and overcast conditions so that slowed down the process a little bit,” he said.

Currently, the blossoms are stage four of the blooming process, which is when the flower stems get longer and the individual blossoms can be clearly seen. The blossoms are very vulnerable to frost at this point.

During the next stage, which happens typically four to six days before peak bloom, fluffy white Sakura blossoms emerge with each flower opening at different times.

At the final stage, stage six, peak bloom begins with the majority of blossoms open.