(Updated at 4:35 p.m.) It’s cherry blossom season in the D.C. area, and the more than 1,000 trees that call Arlington home are beginning to bloom.
The most famous of the local cherry trees, those along the Tidal Basin in D.C., will be in peak bloom next week, from April 8-12, according to the National Park Service. Although spring officially began on March 20, the cherry blossoms blooming in places like Clarendon and Pentagon City are one of nature’s better indicators that warm weather is here to stay.
Arlington plants between 25 and 35 flowering cherry blossom trees each year, county Landscape and Forestry Supervisor Jamie Bartalon told ARLnow.com. The trees planted in Arlington include the Yoshino, Okame and Kwanzan varieties. The Yoshino cherry blossom is the primary species in the Tidal Basin in D.C. that attracts thousands of visitors every year.
Bartalon said most of the recent tree plantings are Okame trees, which are the pink flowering trees pictured above. The Yoshino trees are the plants with white flowers.