Yoshino Flowering Cherry

The Yoshino Flowering Cherry (Prunus x yedoensis) is a medium-sized flowering ornamental tree. It is highly popular as one of the best flowering trees and is a classic in the industry. It flowers in early spring and explodes all at once into a display of single, white-pink flowers with 5 petals and lasts for 2-3 weeks before they fall to the ground. 

The leaves soon emerge after that and are a handsome dark green for the spring and summer before turning gold with darker hues of bronze in the fall. The flowers give way to small, glossy, black fruits over the summer that are beloved by birds. This tree’s bark and form are also quite showy, dark reddish-brown and glossy trunk below a graceful, spreading, and open crown.  

The Yoshino Flowering Cherry is native to Japan and was introduced to the United States in 1902. It is a hybrid with its exact parental lineage being unclear because it was first cultivated so long ago. This tree belongs where people can see it, as a specimen on the lawn near decks or patios, as a street tree, or as a tree in a park. Plant in groups for a dramatic spring bloom. This species is the predominant cherry tree planted in Washington D.C.. It does best in full to partial sun and tolerant of most soil types as long as they are somewhat moist and well-draining. Tolerant of heat and humidity but not drought.