Beautiful Sunday: a Cherry Blossom at the Stone Lantern

I must be a slow thinker - but it's only this year that I figured out the beauty of oriental cherry blossoms and why they're so popular. The sakura tree is considered an exotic tree in our city. It doesn't fit the climate zone. That's why until recently you could only see the cherry blossoms in the Botanical Garden, and the Botanical Garden has so many interesting and unusual plants that the sakura doesn't stand out too much against them.

In the past two decades, several sakura trees have been planted in city gardens, and cherry blossoms have begun to attract the attention of city dwellers. In our city, it is more usual to see apple, plum and other fruit trees in bloom. I make sure to go to the old orchards in the suburbs to admire the apple blossoms in spring. The white and pink flowers in the treetops against the young foliage is very beautiful.

Spring usually comes quickly in our city. In a few days, fresh grass appears and trees are covered with green foliage. This year's spring has been particularly vagaries of the weather. Snow fell in early April, was replaced by warm weather and then turned cold again - all these temperature fluctuations meant that the awakening of nature was noticeably slower than usual. It was as if the trees were being cautious, not trusting the individual warm days.

On the other hand, the sakura trees were blooming quite early, and in early May they were already fully covered with blossoming flowers. It's rare - but in those latitudes where cherry trees are endemic plants, early blooming cherry blossoms are more the norm. And I finally got to see the cherry blossoms as the first swallow. The lush flowering crowns signal the arrival of a new spring. All the other trees and bushes are still cautious and the first leaves are just beginning to emerge, but the sakura is already in full bloom.

One of the locations in the city where you can admire the cherry blossoms is the stone lantern on the shore of the pond in the park on Krestovsky Island. Usually this corner of the park is rather sparsely populated - but not on those days when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. On those days, the stone lantern clearing becomes a pilgrimage site. People of all ages and characters can be found gathering under the trees, admiring the blossoms and rushing to have their photographs taken against the backdrop of the flowers.

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Smartphone	Google Pixel 3a
Location	Saint Petersburg, Russia

This is my entry for the #BeautifulSunday challenge by @ace108 and the #SublimeSunday challenge by @c0ff33a.