PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Joby Gelbspan, of Spring Garden, was walking along the Schuylkill River Thursday enjoying some of the early sites of springtime.
“I think people get excited over signs of spring,” Gelbspan said. “The crocuses, the daffodils, the tulips, the irises, they come in waves – although, we kind of skipped over winter this year didn’t we?”
Alongside flowers coming to bloom are some cherry blossoms. The cause of these early bloomings? A mild winter, experts say.
There are several varieties of cherry trees in the Philadelphia-region, but the ones that sprouted early this year are the deep pink blossoms of the Okame cherries, which started to bloom just last week, in February.
“They are typically two weeks earlier before the Yoshino cherries, but this year they were about two weeks earlier,” said Sandi Polyakov, head gardener at the Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center in Fairmount Park.
“[Yoshino cherries] are the ones that people are seeing now. We’ll say they are the precursor to the main show.”
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Polyakov says more than just mild winter temperatures factor into the early blooming.
“It’s not just temperature,” he said. “So, it’s like, how bright it [is], humidity, rain … kind of like secret sauce underneath the ground with like microorganisms, so you can’t really predict it, which is why it’s kind of this sort of fun game to kind of figure it out, but once the buds go into that green bud stage, then we know we’re four to five weeks out.”
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While people are getting sneak peeks at sights of warmer weather and brighter days, the majority of the other cherry trees aren’t expected to be in full bloom until later this month, during the week of March 20.
Experts say the majority of cherry trees typically reach their full blossoming peak stage anywhere between mid March to mid April.