When will sakura bloom in St. Petersburg – April 26, 2024

St. Petersburg residents are so interested in when sakura will bloom in the city on the Neva that the Peter the Great Botanical Garden decided to answer everyone at once. They ask not to compare with Moscow.

Usually sakura blooms in St. Petersburg in the first ten days of May. “It happens, of course, that it blooms on April 28, if the weather is warm, but this year is clearly not the case. Today it’s only April 26 on the calendar, but questions have been coming in for more than a week,” the press service of the Botanical Garden notes.

Perhaps St. Petersburg residents are eyeing the capital: in Moscow this year, sakura bloomed already in mid-April. This was facilitated by abnormally warm weather; it usually blooms in the capital in the second half of April.

In the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden they ask not to compare: in Moscow everything blooms a week or two earlier than in the Northern capital. Moreover, the weather in St. Petersburg is not kind: minus at night, +5 degrees during the day.

“If we were Sakura, we would have already taken the roots into the branches and run away to warmer climes. But she holds on to please us with her flowering soon. Everything has its time. She, just like you and me, is waiting for warmth to bloom,” added the Botanical Garden.

For those who want to follow the process, a cherry blossom calendar is published on the botanical garden’s website. It indicates what stage different plants are at and where they are located. Changes to the calendar are made as flowering begins.

Several dozen varieties of sakura grow in the Botanical Garden, some of which have never bloomed. One tree blooms for an average week, but it may be less if the weather is too warm or rainy. In general, the cherry blossom period in the garden lasts about three weeks – species and varieties replace each other. The largest trees bloom first: Sargent cherry and Kuril cherry.