Cherry blossoms at the UW Quad
— the week the campus turns pink.
Not only on a wall.
“A square of Yoshino cherries planted in the middle of the Liberal Arts Quadrangle at the University of Washington. The original trees were moved here in 1962 from the Washington Park Arboretum, where they had been grown since the 1930s. Peak bloom is short, usually a week somewhere between mid-March and early April, depending on the winter. The university puts up a livestream of the buds. On the bloom weekend the lawn fills with families and students with cameras, and the petals fall heavy in the next breeze so the brick paths look snowed.
Cherry blossoms at the UW Quad, on ceramic.
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The place, in three passes.
The Liberal Arts Quadrangle, called the Quad, is a four-acre lawn at the center of the University of Washington's Seattle campus, bordered by collegiate Gothic buildings that opened between 1916 and 1948. About thirty Yoshino cherries line the brick walks of the Quad. The trees were originally planted at the Washington Park Arboretum in the late 1930s and moved to the Quad in 1962 to make room for the SR 520 alignment through the Arboretum. They were already mature at relocation; horticulturalists at UW Grounds estimate the trees are now well past eighty years old. The university keeps a Cherry Blossom Watch page each spring.
Peak bloom typically falls between mid-March and the first week of April, with the exact week shifting year to year on the prior winter's warmth. The university maintains a livestream and a Cherry Blossom Watch page through the season. Bloom lasts about a week to ten days before petals begin to drop. The trees are Yoshino cherry, Prunus × yedoensis, the same variety planted around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. After the petals fall, new leaves come in within days, and the Quad returns to the working four-acre lawn it is the rest of the year.
The Quad is open to the public, no admission. Most visitors arrive by light rail to the U District station and walk south, or park at the Central Plaza Garage. UW Grounds asks visitors to stay off the lawn during bloom; the brick walks loop the trees on all four sides and give clean views. Weekend mornings are quietest. The university posts daily bloom updates on its UW News site. Tripods are permitted on the walks but not on the lawn, and drones are not allowed over campus airspace.