March 16, 2023. There will soon be two cherry cultivars in bloom with single (5-petalled) pink flowers. ‘Whitcomb’ have been featured here already – they have been open in the West End since the third week of February, and they are about to open very soon in the rest of the area. These flowers open dark pink, then fade to almost white. The petal shape is round enough that the petals overlap. Since it’s usually still cold when they open in February or March, these trees have flowers until almost April, often with a mix of pale and dark flowers.
Here are ‘Okame’, not nearly as commonly planted in this area. Shirley Willard photographed these starting to open in Sechelt. These are smaller flowers than on ‘Whitcomb’ and the petals are more narrow – you can see that they do not overlap. The sepals (on the back of the flowers) are often pink.
