Cherry blossom at the BBG

The main, Kanzan cherry, event is not happening yet, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. They are in bud.

But I think their blooming coincide pretty perfectly with the scheduled cherry blossom festival - Sakura Matsuri - this weekend. That timing is a coup for the garden, as the festival is planned eons in advance and must sometimes go ahead well before or after peak bloom, which varies from year to year, and cannot be timed perfectly.

Personally, I prefer the cherries without all the people, but if you're into Entertainment with a capital E, go. It's quite something. If only to see the characters who dress up in the guise of their favourite Anime characters for a competition which is taken very seriously.

I may return next week, or try and time a visit for when the petals have all  fallen, making a pink carpet.

This week the earlier cultivars are in bloom, and are very pretty.

I was really there to look at the kitchen in the new and very impressive visitors' center. I am weighing whether to do a cooking class there in the fall. It has been presented as an option, and I have wanted to do a sort of forager's table, or farmer's market table, for quite a long time. I could even cook a menu from my book. It will be an enormous amount of prep work, and, knowing me, I will be fretting about it weeks in advance. I obsess. So I need to think about it. Fast and hard.

Here, native Mertensia virginica - Virginia bluebells - hold their own in the company of the imported, media-friendly crowd of cherries.

 It's a beautiful garden. I know it well. But it does not fail to impress.