Welcome to a photo blog by Miho Iimura. I am a local freelance photographer in Tokyo. Last weekend, 16month old daughter and I went to Shinjuku Gyoen Park to check out cherry blossom of the year 2019.
To cut the story short, and tell you some detail later, there were beautiful cherry blossoms in mid-February.
kanzakura, early blooming Sakura Tree at Shinjuku Gyoen Park
Each year I receive more and more requests on a photo session with Sakura. But the best timing of the most popular sakura -Yoshinozakura-is limited. So, I wanted to share more information on a variety of Sakura.
On February 16 2019, about 80 % of flower petals were open and looked amazing! As of April 21st, it’s pretty much full bloom, according to the official blog by the park. However, there is one other big tree of Kanzakura that’s not blooming at all, so we can expect this tree to start blooming in later this month.
If you are looking for less crowded photos with Sakura you might want to consider coming to Japan in mid-late February.
The photos above are all Kanzakura, the earliest blooming variety of Sakura in Spring. FYI, The word Kan (寒) in Chinese character stands for COLD! As it blooms when it is still cold and early in the spring. The color is much stronger in pink compared to Yoshino. So it works great in photographs.
Just for your travel info, the lowest temperature in this morning was around 2 °C. So It felt a little cold when we walked out of the house. But it got warm up to 13 °C later around noontime.
open lawn area
At the end of March, when Sakura will be full bloomed, that means when all trees on this pictures will turn pink, this lawn will be filled with Hanami guests.
Interested a family photo session with me? Please visit my website!
Handy link to English Sakura Forecast
By Earth Communication Provider
By Japn-guide
By Japan Railpass
