From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

As Philadelphia welcomes the return of spring, the warming weather brings the annual cherry blossom season into full bloom, which is expected to peak during the first week of April.

In 1926, the Japanese government gifted Philadelphia 1,600 flowering trees to honor the 150th anniversary of America’s independence. Over time, the puffy clouds of spring have become synonymous with the season in the City of Brotherly Love.

Between 1998 and 2007, the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia planted another 1,000 trees, and in 2023, it began another campaign to plant an additional 250 trees to mark next year’s semiquincentennial.

Best places to see blooms

• Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center, Lansdowne Drive and Horticultural Drive Philadelphia, Pa. 19131
• Morris Arboretum and Gardens, 100 E Northwestern Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa. 19118
• Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Azalea Garden, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy, Philadelphia, Pa. 19130
• Kelly Drive, from the north of Boathouse Row along the river
• Rittenhouse Square, 1800 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19103

Sandi Polyakov, the Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center’s garden curator and director of preservation, said the pockets of trees throughout the city give a sense of joy.

“People just seem generally happy to be out in nature, to kind of feel the springtime fully coming,” Polyakov said. “They kind of see it as this yearly rebirth and it’s a really nice energy to be around.”

Peak season expected during Cherry Blossom Festival

Polyakov said he expects this year’s peak to land during the first week of April, lining up with the Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia on April 5 and 6 at Shofuso in Fairmount Park.

Previous winters have shifted the peak of Philly’s cherry blossom seasons in years past, particularly with end-of-season cold snaps that hit the city during late winter.

“If they get hit with a late frost, those beautiful flowers kind of just shrivel up and melt away, and it can really kind of put a damper on things a little bit,” Polyakov said.

Pamela Morris Olshefski, plant collections manager at the Morris Arboretum and Gardens, said the 2025 blooms will appear particularly pink and white due to the somewhat “harsh” winter we experienced.

“As it starts to warm up, we’ll still be able to see the early blooming cherries, as well as the later blooming ones,” Olshefski said.

“In some years, we would have been halfway through our cherry season. The fact that it’s just beginning, the weather’s getting nice, and a lot more people are getting out to visit,” she said. “It’s been great to be able to show off more of the cherries to more people.”

The Yoshino cherry tree is the most common in the Philadelphia area. But at the Morris Arboretum, more than 60 varieties of cherry trees are on the grounds, according to Olshefski.

“There’s a lot to see here in the early spring into late April,” Olshefski said. “It gives us a lot of variety and a lot of different colors.”

“The thing that makes it so special is all the flowers appear before the leaves appear,” Polyakov said. “They kind of just look like these big pinkish, whitish, poofy clouds, just the flowers all at the same time.”

JASGP Executive Director Kazumi Teune came to Philadelphia from Japan 42 years ago. She said Shofuso was the first place she visited.

“I didn’t know anything about Philadelphia,” Teune said. “I was shocked to see a replica of the traditional Japanese house sitting in Fairmount Park.”

Now leading the way for the organization, Teune said the festival has grown considerably since it began in 1998 when roughly 300 people attended. Last year’s festival attracted roughly 40,000 people and now rivals others nationwide, most notably Washington’s festival.

“D.C.’s celebration is downtown. We are here [in Fairmount Park], we do everything,” Teune said. “It’s pretty similar to what we traditionally do in Japan under blossoming cherry trees, just sitting there eating and dancing. It’s pretty much the same tradition we can carry on here in Philadelphia.”

Tickets for the festival start at $15. Children under 12 and JASGP members can get in for free. Separate tickets are needed for the Shofuso House which are $5 each. Tea ceremonies are $10.