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It is always heard that many people would like to plant cherry blossom in Hong Kong and hope that we can create beautiful cherry blossom sceneries just like Japan. Hong Kong does have some famous cherry blossom viewing sites, such as Kadoorie Farm and Botanic, KwanKung Pavilion at Cheung Chau and Hong Kong Velodrome Park, etc., however, there are actually quite a lot planting projects failed. Can Japanese cherry blossom sceneries really appear in Hong Kong?

To explore this question, it is better to understand cherry blossom first. Cherry blossom belongs to Rosaceae, is under the genus Cerasus, and mostly grows in temperate regions. There are more than 100 wildly grown species worldwide, and China also has around 45 of them. It has a history of 2,000 years for China to grow cherries, which are mainly used to be food or for ornamental purposes. Though Cerasus plants are distributed in southern China, such as the Cerasus campanulata which is commonly planted in Hong Kong, in fact, there are only 5 species (Table 1).

Table 1. 5 Cerasus spp. in South China region

In Japan, there are around 10 species of wild cherry blossoms. However, after breeding and propagating for many years, variety, cultivar, and breed have almost reached 600 kinds. The season of cherry blossom (i.e. from February to May) every year has successfully brought a huge and substantial economic income to Japan. The Cherry blossom economy also led China, Korea and other countries to develop similar tourist spot rapidly. The factors that make Japanese cherry blossom sceneries succeed can actually be analyzed from two aspects, plant characteristics and plantation management.

From the characteristics of cherry blossom, we may find out the reasons for its economic and ornamental values. First, the reason why there is a “show-off” effect when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom is largely due to the “Flower first, leaves after” characteristics. Hong Kong also has a lot of deciduous trees like this, they will first bloom before leaves growing in spring, such as Bombax andTebebuia. In the absence of the effect of green leaves, the color of cherry blossom become very prominent! Size, number and color of Flowers are also the decisive factors. Cerasus plants generally grow in clusters, with each flower has a diameter of 3 to 4cm, when a large amount of flowers bloom at the same time without leaves, it is indeed a gorgeous spectacular .

It is important to mention that as there are a lot of breed cherry blossoms, these can also modify the blooming time, color and the petals distribution arrangement (single layer of petals or multi-layers of petals), etc. and can be under the maximum control. As long as we only need to plant cherry blossoms with different flowering periods in plan, the flowers then can bloom successively, especially while the blooms overlap each other. In this way, the ornamental periods can be greatly extended. And it also allows visitors to see a variety of early and late cherry blossom at different times, the Cherry blossom economy can then be prolonged.

For tree management, we would use asexual propagation, such as cutting and grafting, to reproduce artificial or hybrid breed, so that the characteristics of the mother plant can be fully retained. Thus, breeding and nursery management of plants production must be in good coordination. Japan is very professional in terms of plant selection, planted trees generally have been indicated the cherry blossom species name they belong to. If they do not know what kinds of cherry blossoms they are planting, it would be impossible for them to control and "duplicate" a variety of effects for cherry blossoms in full bloom.

Al last, the newly planted cherry blossom trees will always get structural pruning in order to maintain its shape. The tree will be forced to undergo pollarding in winter, which means to top the trees for the first time, and water sprout will be cut every year. Such pruning is designed to control the size of the tree, to make the new branches become neat and to improve the ornamental value. Moreover, topping has no longer be used in Europe and America anymore as it may result in severe decay of branches.

So can Hong Kong take the above experience as reference to create a cherry blossom scenery? First, Japan's cherry blossoms belong to temperate region distribution, it is not suitable for sub-tropical region which Hong Kong belongs to. In the past years, people have tried to plant cherry blossoms in Hong Kong, in fact, people have lacked the consideration of their origin and species. Such unscientific cultivation would just result in those unsuccessful cases. However, due to the lack of knowledge about the species, it actually dedicates nothing to our planting experience.

One of the cherry blossoms being successfully planted in Hong Kong is Cerasus campanulata, you may find them in many places in Hong Kong. So we may consider to take this as the basis, and then plant other varieties and breeds. If there is any nursery would like to develop the works, future planting will be more effective and successful.

Caring after planting is also very important. The old cherry blossom trees situated in KwanKung Pavilion, Cheung Chau was removed due to destruction caused by topping, and most of the newly planted ones are also dead. Under such circumstance, the cherry blossom scenery will likely disappear in Cheung Chau.

Therefore, as we can see planting cherry blossom is a very specialized field of study. Starting from selection, propagation, planting and post planting caring; every single step are highly correlated in order to increase the chance of being success. In recent years, Guangdong Province has also started to develop cherry blossom economy, and many cherry blossoms that are suitable for sub-tropical climate are planted as well, such as Guangzhou cherry blossom. With the increase in South China's experience in planting and appropriate supply of seedlings, perhaps in the near future of Hong Kong, there will be a cherry blossom scenery as good as in Japan. However, there should not be excessive planting when developing cherry blossom economy, especially when the plants are reproduced by asexual propagation. Since they have similar genes, if pests appear, all the plants can be killed simultaneously, causing serious damage. On the contrary, if we just plant some, like making a theme park, it will be very popular for sure.