SakuraWatch 2010 March 9 Update
I swung by the Bielensen Park today (Tuesday, March 9) for a look at the trees. Zero Hour is fast approaching, so I thought more frequent checkups might be in order.
There are still very few flowers budding, but there has definitely been progress at the park, both in the trees as in the park itself. In the five days since my last update, they have planted a couple dozen new trees along the lakeside, where the oldest sakura trees grow. I'll leave it to the horticulturalists among you to identify the genus and species of these trees.
As you can see on this map, I've broken the SakuraWatch down into four zones.
1: along the west side of the lake
2: along the entry road
3: north of the entrance, by the dirt lot
4: south of the entrance, on the grassy knoll
Zone 1: Lakeside
In the lakeside area, they have planted a bunch of new trees, some of which have begun flowering. I'll leave it to you guys to tell me what kind of trees these are.
Here is a sampling of the lakeside trees. You will see a shot of a tree, and the close-ups that follow are from that tree. Some brown buds, some green and some flowers starting to push out. I'd say that this zone is the farthest along of the four.
Zone 2: Entry Road
These buds are mostly green, though there are some brown. On the other end, there are also some that have flowered. But for the most part, they're green.
Zone 3: North
Out by the dirt lot, a lot of the buds are green. Some of them are even starting to split open, though very few are actually showing any pink.
Zone 4: Grassy Knoll
There aren't that many trees here, and the few that are here are still quite dormant. The buds are, as you can see, still small and brown.
It was pretty chilly and windy today, and the wind was whipping up the lake. The ducks seemed okay with it, though.
So in conclusion, right now I'm sticking with Jason's earlier target date of the weekend of the 20th. There are a lot of buds starting to open up, but still very few flowers have poked their heads out yet.
I plan to swing by the park once more this week, just to nail down the conditions for this weekend. I do expect more flowers to be open by the weekend, but probably nothing major.