Cherry blossom at Alnwick Gardens

The cherry 🍒 orchard at Alnwick Garden is planted with 326 Taihaku trees, a variety of ornamental cherry that produces large bright white blossoms every spring.

The Taihaku was originally introduced to England in 1900 by plant collector Captain Collingwood Ingram from Sussex. It later died out in its native Japan, and he was instrumental in reintroducing it there. All of the Taihaku trees in the world are descended from cuttings he took in Sussex!

As I said, the weather was terrible, and many of the blossoms had gone over, but it was still worth seeing. The last photo of the orchard shows what it would have looked like if we had visited two weeks ago!Read more