Kwanzan Cherry Blossoms

I took some pictures of beautiful pink flowers on trees near the driveway of my son’s San Jose home in February 2012 and have been trying to identify them ever since. People in the neighborhood had no idea, and although I looked at countless pictures of “pink flower trees” on Google Images, I had no luck.

 

There was one more possibility: Contact the housing development people and ask them. Ahh, but I’m lazy; I want answers to be real handy and easy to find. So I didn’t do that.

 

Then, just this past April, when the wife and I were in San Jose for my grandson’s birthday, we took a drive to the Japanese Heritage Park in San Jose. As we were walking along one of the pathways, we came across some of those very same trees.

 

I searched all over for some sort of identifying sign, but found none, resigning myself to the possibility that identification was not on the near horizon. However, we saw some landscapers trimming the hedge separating the park from the street, so the wife walked over and asked a trimmer if he knew what kind of tree had those pink flowers.

 

He knew what they were! Bless his heart. 

They are Kwanzan cherry trees (Prunus serrulata), native to the Far East (China, Japan and Korea). They can be grown all over the U.S., but are most prevalent in Washington D.C.

For you gardening and landscaping enthusiasts out there, they grow in zones 5 and 6, where the climate is cool and dry. For best results, the Kwanzan need full exposure to the sun.

The flowers, which begin appearing in the Spring, last the longest of all cherry tree varieties. They grow to 15-25 feet tall, with a spread of 15-25 feet, spreading symmetrically toward the top like a vase.

Ah … at last! Pink flowering tree bliss.