Toronto’s ‘cherry blossom watch’ says it’s almost time for popular spring pilgrimage

Toronto’s largest public park says its famous cherry blossom trees are showing their first signs of impending bloom.

Every year, thousands of locals and visitors descend on High Park during peak cherry bloom season and the park’s nature centre says it’s almost time to make that pilgrimage again.

The centre says cherry blossom trees in the park are in Stage 1 of the bloom development process, which means the buds appear “fat, round, healthy and green.”

It says that’s the very first sign of their impending arrival, but it’s still early to make a definitive prediction on when peak blooms will occur.

However, High Park’s cherry blossoms usually reach peak bloom between late April and early May.

The High Park Nature Centre says peak bloom depends on weather and only lasts about a week, so it encourages visitors to keep checking its website for the latest updates.

Cherry blossom trees can also be found in other parks across Toronto and the city’s website maps out their locations.

The city says some of the first cherry blossom, or Sakura, trees were planted in Toronto in 1959, when then-Japanese ambassador to Canada presented 2,000 trees to Toronto residents on behalf of Tokyo.

“The trees were planted in appreciation of Toronto accepting relocated Japanese-Canadians following the Second World War,” it says on its website.