Why I Oughta...

The Cherry Blossoms are in bloom.  At least in our backyard.  The photos below show our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree in bloom with pink flowers and red-to-maroon foliage.  Those leaves turn out ordinary - green-colored - as the Spring and Summer wears on.   This tree was bought in Mid-May in 2017 as we were still building our new house.  We planted this ahead of our occupancy and had to baby it as the heat of Summer arrived .   For the full tale of the tape, here's the history of this tree below.  It has bloomed five of six years with 2019 being the only year we saw no flowers.   2017: Bloomed (when purchased) in mid-May . 2018: Bloomed that first Spring after being planted in mid-May . 2019: No blooms. Looked like it wanted to in mid-May . 2020: Bloomed (during the pandemic) in early May . 2021: Bloomed in late April (photos in this post were taken on April 28, 2021) 2022:  Bloomed in mid-May. (photos taken on May 11). ...

2021 marks the second year in a row that we are being treated to some pink peony-like Cherry Blossoms on our Japanese Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree (or... as the Missouri Botanical Garden points out...it is also called the "Kanzan" vs. "Kwanzan" .  I'm thinking I'm going to start calling this a Kanzan from here out...) in our backyard.  Our tree was bought from Menards after my first trip to Tokyo in 2017 and we planted it right around Earth Day that year.  It was blooming when I bought it.   This was the first Japanese-inspired piece of our garden puzzle - that have been subsequently complemented with the Japanese Maple tree, ferns and some grasses.   So...let me do a list here: 2017: Bloomed (when purchased) in mid-May . 2018: Bloomed that first Spring after being planted in mid-May . 2019: No blooms.  Looked like it wanted to in mid-May .   2020:  Bloomed (during the pandemic) in early May . 2021:  Bloomed in late April (...