Find All the Flowering Cherry Trees in Seattle With This Updated Interactive Map

Seattle geographer Nat Henry made finding cherry and plum blossoms around the city much easier.

by Jas Keimig

As the winter turns to spring, Seattle takes on a light pink hue.

The abundant cherry and plum blossom trees around the city start to come into full bloom during the last weeks of March and into April. Popular viewing points include the Yoshino cherry trees in the University of Washington Quad (expected to reach peak bloom after March 20) as well as trees in the Washington Park Arboretum, Jefferson Park, and Seward Park. But part of the thrill of this season is discovering a residential street or sidewalk chock full of these flowering trees. It makes the city feel that much more alive, intimate, and in bloom.

Enter Nat Henry. The professional geographer put together an interactive map of where to find cherry and plum blossom trees around Seattle. And, boy, do we have a lot of them. According to Henry, there are over 30,000 Prunus genus trees, and 12,000 of those are flowering cherry trees. Users can toggle between seeing all Prunus trees or just the flowering cherries, indicated by purple and pink dots respectively. And each dot indicates the specific tree variety — like Japanese cherry, Yoshino cherry, cherry plum, or blireiana plum — as well as the source the data came from.

A flowering tree outside Henry's window inspired him to create the map.

"I wanted to know what species it was, because every year I saw it, it was beautiful, but nobody knew [the species]. So I made this map and then realized it's actually, it's not a cherry tree. It's a thundercloud plum tree," said Henry. "Walking around Capitol Hill, it's almost this treasure hunt. You can do it two weeks in a row and it'll be totally different because different trees are blooming."

To construct the map, Henry had to pull from five different Seattle tree databases: the Seattle Department of Transportation's trees in the public right of way, UW Facilities' campus trees map, Seattle Parks and Recreation's Urban Forestry's Prunus trees inventory, SPR Urban Food Systems' fruit trees inventory, and UW Botanic Gardens' Washington Park Arboretum Interactive Map. Together — excluding privately owned Prunus trees — these inventories form the basis of the map.

Seattle has a long history with cherry and plum trees, many of which symbolize the relationship our city has with Japan. According to Crosscut, Japanese delegates bound for London in 1929 stopped by Seattle to plant three cherry trees in Seward Park. Over the next two years, 3,500 cherry trees were gifted to Seattle by the Japanese Association of North America, with 2,000 more gifted from the United Nations Association of Japan in 1950. Again in 1976, Prime Minister Takeo Miki gifted 1,000 cherry trees as a gesture of friendship between Japan and Washington State.

Henry made the map last year, so it's missing data from recently planted trees, like the 11 cherry blossom trees planted outside the Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Washington by Mayor Bruce Harrell and the Consul-General of Japan in Seattle Makoto Iyori last month. But Henry intends to keep the interactive map up and running, updating annually so people can map out their own sublime interaction with these beautiful trees.

Henry's favorite lesser-known spot to see cherry blossoms? "Kobe Terrace in the CID is absolutely packed with Japanese cherries and should become a blossoming oasis by early April," he said. "But I suppose the nice thing about the map is that everyone can find their own hidden gems!"

📸 Featured Image: A beautiful flowering Sargent Cherry (aka Prunus sargentii) in the Central District as identified by Nat Henry's interactive map. Make your own bespoke cherry blossom tour of the South End! (Photo: Jas Keimig)