This is peak-viewing season for clouds of cherry blossoms and a heady bouquet of other flowers citywide. Take in the annual flower show, adopt an ancient peony tree or trip out on flowers in the suburbs.

Pink-and-white cherry blossoms seem to float in the air for a brief, precious period before the leaves come out, sometimes just for a week or so. This is peak-viewing season and there are charming spots where you can savor sakura.

The Shanghai Botanical Garden features a month of "rolling" cherry blossoms, with different varieties blooming in succession.

Office lady Selie Zhuang, 24, has been captivated by cherry blossoms ever since she read Japanese manga and watched Japanese TV dramas in high school.

"The flower shows the fragility of beauty and the transience of life," she enthuses. "I love to lie down under the cherry trees in springtime, and this frees me from the pressures of daily life."

Quiet Qinghai Road next to the Shanghai TV Station (between Nanjing Road W. and Weihai Road) is one of the first places where cherry trees were planted to cheer pedestrians.

Luxun Park in Hongkou District has a grove of cherry blossoms at the back gate. Renowned author Lu Xun studied in Japan in the early 1900s and frequently wrote of cherry blossoms.

As the Japanese saying goes, "Sakura in seven days," cherry blossoms appear and then drop usually within a week before the leaves come out.

But those in the Shanghai Botanical Garden will last for a month because different cherry species have different blooming periods.

Shanghai Botanical Garden's early sakura falls from late March to early April. You can still catch them. Then double-petal blossoms take their place early this month. There are also rare pale green cherry blossoms.

To symbolize Sino-Japanese friendship, 120 cherry trees were planted last month in Daning Lingshi Park in Zhabei District. Yanzhong Green Park also has a grove of cherry trees.

Universities are another place for blossoms. Tongji University is known for its "cherry blossom boulevard" in the southern campus. Not far away, Fudan University students walk beneath blossoms in Xiyuan Garden in its northern campus.

Other flowers

Guyi Garden

Guyi Garden in Jiading District, the city's biggest classical garden, was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) nearly 500 years ago. Some ancient trees bear as many as 65 flowers.