At the end of March, Seattle observes a spring tradition that is both natural and deeply human: our cherry trees bloom in concert, and people flood the streets to admire them. Blossom guides tend to direct wannabe watchers to a few well-traveled destinations, including the UW Campus, Washington Park Arboretum, Kobe Terrace, and Lake Washington Boulevard near Seward Park. These spots are rightfully famous — but with blossoms popping up on seemingly every street, I wanted to know if there were any overlooked gems elsewhere in the city.
The answer was surprisingly hard to find, since there isn’t a central database for flowering cherry trees in Seattle. With an enormous amount of help from tree data stewards around Seattle, I combined records from five city and university databases to take a more comprehensive look at trees around the city. The combined dataset includes over 44,000 flowering stone fruit trees across Seattle, including over 17,000 flowering cherry trees.
What qualifies as a flowering cherry tree? First off, they’re members of the Prunus genus, a designation that encompasses cherries, plums, almonds, peaches, and apricots, and other stone fruits. Within this genus, a few varieties of cherry trees have been cultivated for their spectacular blooms. These include:
- Japanese cherry, Prunus serrulata: Cherry blossom cultivation has a long history in Japan, with evidence of early cultivars dating back to the 10th century. The ornamental Prunus serrulata species includes the famous “Kwanzan”, “Shirotae”, “Amanogawa”, and “Royal Burgundy” cultivars. There are over 11,000 Japanese cherries spread across almost every neighborhood in Seattle.
- Yoshino cherry, Prunus × yedoensis: A cross between Oshima and Weeping cherries. There are over 1,800 citywide, including the famous UW Quad cherries as well as clusters along 38th Avenue Southwest in West Seattle and Beacon Avenue South in South Beacon Hill.
- Higan cherry, Prunus × subhirtella: Over 2,100 citywide, including several clusters on Phinney Ridge.
- Sargent cherry, Prunus sargentii: Over 400 citywide, including clusters on South Charles Street and South Dearborn Street east of Rainier Avenue.
Here are ten lesser-known spots to find flowering cherry trees around Seattle:
Other trees in the Prunus genus have blooms worth seeking out: notably, the Thundercloud plum (Prunus cerasifera ‘Thundercloud’) and Blireiana Purpleleaf plum (Prunus × blireiana) have spectacular pink and white blooms. Ornamental plum trees tend to reach full bloom slightly earlier than flowering cherries, so your favorite harbingers of “cherry blossom season” may not be cherry trees at all!
Finally, some trees in the combined data were simply labeled as Prunus sp.: these could be any species in the genus, but are most likely cherry or plum trees.
Here are ten more spots that are bursting with Prunus trees around the city:
We need to go beyond pictures to highlight all the great spots for blossom watching around the city. The interactive map below shows 17,000 flowering cherries and 44,000 Prunus trees across Seattle. At the top of the map, you can choose to view all Prunus trees or just the flowering cherries. The zoomed-out map highlights streets and parks that have dense clusters of trees: click/tap on a street or park to focus in on that area, or zoom in to see details for each tree. If you’re in Seattle, you can also press the button on the top left to refocus the map at your current location.
Make sure to zoom in your neighborhood even if it isn’t highlighted — there are probably still blossoms nearby!
Trees outside of public rights of way aren’t included in this data, so even if you don’t see many flowering cherries near you on the map, you might be delighted by a trip around your block. Happy blossom hunting!
Nat Henry is a professional geographer based in Seattle. He runs Henry Spatial Analysis, a mission-driven consulting firm focused on health and urban sustainability.
