Winter-Flowering Cherry
Prunus × subhirtella 'Autumnalis'
“Five months of winter blossom on bare branches whenever the weather turns mild. Plant it where you can see it from the kitchen. The tree that makes dark mornings bearable.”
— ROSIE
Rosie's Take
Most cherry blossom lasts a week or two in April. Prunus 'Autumnalis' flowers for five months. Five months — from November to March, in fits and starts through the entire winter, producing small, semi-double, blush-white flowers on bare branches whenever the weather turns mild. It's not the overwhelming explosion of a spring cherry. It's something more subtle and, to my mind, more valuable: the persistent, intermittent promise of blossom during the months when you need it most.
The flowers are individually modest — small, semi-double, pale pink in bud opening to near-white, scattered along the bare branches rather than smothering them. But on a mild January day, when you catch a branch covered in these delicate, tissue-pale flowers against a grey sky, the effect is almost unbearably lovely. It's blossom where blossom has no right to be.
I planted mine where I can see it from the kitchen window. That was deliberate, and it was the best planting decision I've ever made. On a dark December morning, with the kettle boiling and the garden grey, the sight of those small white flowers on bare black branches makes the whole day feel different. It's the tree equivalent of a lit candle in a window. You don't need much. You just need something.
It makes a modest tree — perhaps twenty feet at maturity, with a rounded, spreading canopy. The autumn leaf colour is decent — warm yellow and bronze — though you're not buying it for that. You're buying it for the winter flowers, and for the knowledge that on any mild day between November and March, there'll be blossom. A few stems cut and brought inside will scent a room with a faint, sweet, almond-blossom fragrance. Winter gardening is about small gestures that carry large meaning. This tree understands that.
✿ From the folklore cabinet
Prunus × subhirtella 'Autumnalis' is of Japanese origin, a hybrid that has been cultivated in Japan for centuries. The 'Autumnalis' name is misleading — it suggests autumn, but the tree flowers right through winter into early spring. In Japan, winter-flowering cherries are appreciated as part of the 'fuyu-zakura' tradition — winter cherry viewing, a quieter counterpart to the famous spring 'hanami.' The philosopher-gardener's tree, perhaps — fewer petals, longer contemplation. In Britain, it was championed by the great garden-maker Collingwood Ingram, known as 'Cherry' Ingram, who devoted his life to collecting and preserving cherry varieties. He understood that beauty doesn't have to be abundant to be powerful. Sometimes a few flowers on a bare branch say more than a thousand in full bloom.
