Kwanzan Cherry: Flowering in Spring 2018

Spring flowers have hit our yard.  And also our flowering trees.  That includes our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry tree that is planted in our backyard.  The photo above is of some of the blooms that have emerged recently on the upper branches.  The history of this tree starts in March of 2017 when we bought it after a trip to Tokyo where I took in the Cherry Blossoms.  It lived on the driveway for a few months while we built our #newoldfarmhouse and we finally planted it at the end of June. 

It survived the Winter and this Spring, buds started to open - despite the brutally long cold weather.  And now, it seems like it is on a good trajectory with new growth and seemingly happy in terms of sun/location in the yard.  Even after we added the one new bed to the south fence line, this tree is still kind of out on an island.  We laid down a ring of mulch (but not a volcano!) around the tree and so it feels anchored, but will have to wait until next year when we add another line of beds to the backyard for it to begin to feel part of a cohesive plan/layout. 

The flowers almost have a peony look to them with big, light-weight petals and there are a few dozen blooms that have come to life this season.  It seems (based on this tree listing) that as it matures, we'll get a totally-covered-in-flowers-tree every Spring.