Friday, April 09, 2010

Branch Brook Park Past Peak and misses Festival

After writing about Branch Brook Park in my e-news this morning I waited for my son Dakota and his friend Jack to come home from school, grabbed my camera gear and headed to Newark.
  For those that didn't read my e-news, Branch Brook Park has the largest selection of flowering cherries in the US. Over 1000 more than Washington, DC.  Their cherry blossom festival starts tomorrow and runs April 10th through April 18th. When it's at its peak it truly is heaven on earth. Maxwell Smart would say "Missed it by that much" Unfortunately the peak was early this week right when the Summer temperatures started. The warm air, and the warm breezes caused the cherries to bloom at an extremely accelerated rate. In fact when they were at peak there were probably a larger percentage that were ever in bloom at one time because Branch Brook has planted many different varieties to extend the blooming time. I think that more varities were flowering at the same time this year because of the heat.
This was my son's first time to Branch Brook. I wanted to show him a glorious flower display, but instead I got to explain to him that God doesn't look at a calendar. I'm sure thousands of people will be going to the park this weekend, and will walk away disappointed. That's too bad because even when the trees are not in full bloom, it is a beautiful space. The Kwansan Cherries are still in bloom and haven't peaked yet. The Kwansan has large pink flowers that remind me of cotton candy balls. There were a few scattered weeping cherries that were also very pretty and also haven't peaked, but the majority of the cherries were more than 75% done blooming.  There is also some extremely large cherries that make great family photo opportunities.
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