Where to see cherry blossoms in San Francisco

The cherry plums (Prunus cerasifera) lining residential streets bloom late January through February — a pink-white haze weeks before the festival. The ornamental Japanese cherries (Prunus serrulata, Prunus yedoensis) at the Japanese Tea Garden and in Japantown follow from mid-March through mid-April. Weather shifts these windows by a week or two each year.

The Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival takes over Japantown across two weekends in April, centered on the Japan Center and Peace Plaza on Post Street between Laguna and Fillmore. The blocks around the Peace Pagoda are planted with ornamental cherries that peak right around the festival.

Plan a walk into Japantown → and SF Bloomwalk will route you past cherries that should be flowering on the day you go.

The Japanese Tea Garden holds the densest stand of ornamental cherries in the city — a paid entry, but the surrounding paths near the Music Concourse and the de Young are free and studded with cherries too. The blocks of the inner Sunset along 9th Avenue and Lincoln Way are good extensions on the way in or out.

SF Bloomwalk pulls from the city's public Street Tree List, which documents thousands of Prunus trees on residential streets. A few clusters worth walking in February and March:

• Octavia Boulevard between Market and Hayes — long corridor of cherry plums.
• Alta Plaza Park and the blocks around Jackson and Pierce in Pacific Heights.
• Inner Sunset — Hugo, Irving, and the side streets off 9th Avenue.
• NoPa around Fell, Hayes, and Grove.
• Bernal Heights — Cortland Avenue and the climbing streets to the north.

Bloom windows shift week to week. SF Bloomwalk checks today's date against a curated bloom calendar and the city's tree census, then routes your walk past the species most likely to be flowering.