5 Easy To Grow Trees That Bloom Pretty Pink Flowers

People are complicated. The same species that brought you Thomas Kinkade also made Wassily Kandinsky world-famous. You're listening to John Coltrane while your neighbor is cranking ... what is that, Celine Dion? Every bit of fluff seems to be offset by something complex and beautiful in an entirely different way. 

Except flowers. Humans like over-the-top flowers. If flowers were fashion, auto design, or home decor, they'd be ostentatious. But on stem or branch, they should be as ridiculous, frilly, saturated, and heavily scented as their breeders can dream. They should be pretty, and there should be a lot of them. Why have a bloom on a stem when you can have 10, and why settle for 10 on a border plant when you can have 10,000 on a tree? And, being products of today's culture, most folks also want them easy. 

Around spring, you may enjoy the outlandish floral displays, but don't want to invest a huge amount of time cultivating them. Luckily, there are flowering trees: a tree slap full of insanely pretty flowers, requiring absolutely no effort. And pink. Make them pink. So here's a giant list of pink flowering trees that are easy for gardeners of any level to grow.

Quick, think of a tree full of pink blooms.

What you just pictured is probably a Kwanzan (also transliterated "Kanzan") cherry tree (Prunus serrulata 'Kwanzan'). It's the most popular double-flowering cherry, which is something like being the most beautiful jewel in a leather pouch full of perfect jewels. They're pink, yes, but in a sublime way that doesn't seem possible. You can't take a bad photograph of a Kwanzan cherry tree, but at the same time it seems to be difficult for photographers to even come close to reproducing the actual colors of the blooms.

Kwanzan cherries are one of the two most common varieties that make Washington, D.C.'s annual Cherry Blossom Festival spectacular. (The other common variety is the Yoshino cherry.) The trees typically bloom in April and early May. Kwanzan cherries are native to China, Japan, and Korea, but grow well in the U.S. in USDA hardiness zones 5 through 9. Like many flowering cherries, mature Kwanzan cherry trees have roughly the same height and spread at maturity ... 30 to 40 feet, in this case. They prefer full sun, but are fairly indiscriminate about soil and water conditions. There are two downsides to Kwanzan cherry trees: they don't produce fruit, and they have a fairly short lifespan of 15 to 25 years.

Prunus triloba is another in the genus of plants that includes contains almonds, cherries, plums, peaches, and others. This variety is sometimes referred to as flowering almond or double-flowering plum — a common name shared with both Prunus x blireiana, Prunus glandulosa, and sometimes other varieties. So be sure to look for Prunus triloba for this specific variety. 

Like those ornamental hybrids, P. triloba produces little or no fruit. Its blooms can be double or semi-double, which can seem a bit like gilding the lily, given the tree's explosion of early-spring flowers. But if you're determined to have the double blooms, take care about sourcing this tree, since it's commonly confused with other Prunus species even by growers.

P. triloba is hardy in zones 3 to 7 and does well in full or partial sun, requiring four to six hours of light per day. They like moist, well-drained soil and can typically grow up to 10 to 15 feet tall, either as a hedge or a small tree. In the fall, its foliage (which is three-lobed, in case you were wondering about the scientific name) turns a red-tinged yellow that is sometimes described as bronze. This one just keeps giving.

This is another Prunus two-fer, but with a bit less confusion. In one corner we have the weeping higan cherry (Prunus x subhirtella 'Pendula'), a gorgeous weeping cherry with double pink flowers that grow in a drooping habit. In the other corner, we have weeping Yoshino flowering cherry (Prunus x yedoensis 'Shidare-Yoshino'), a gorgeous weeping cherry with single pink flowers that grow in a drooping habit ... well, you get the idea. 

They're each light pink and can be difficult to tell apart at a distance — but for the difference in double versus single blossoms. The weeping branch structure, which can be accentuated through pruning, creates a singularly beautiful tree that's evocative of Japanese art. The weeping Yoshino cherry was, by some accounts, created by hybridizing the Yoshino cherry with the weeping higan cherry. 

Both grow a minimum of 15 to 20 feet tall and wide, but the weeping higan can get substantially larger ... up to 40 feet tall and 25 feet wide. Both are easy to grow, though the weeping Yoshino is a bit more tolerant of various soil structures and of varying moisture levels, including a fair amount of drought tolerance. But you honestly can't lose with any weeping cherry tree.

Let us move away from Prunus to a native of the eastern United States that deserves just as much attention for its rosy April blooms. The flowers of the eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) have a bit of variation from pink to purple, but commonly inhabit a region of the visible spectrum that is genuinely a stunning shade. 

You might easily conclude that the flowers can't possibly be that color. Its irregular branching, which can look scattery or dense, can be tamed by pruning — but pruning isn't required and probably shouldn't be done unless necessary for the health of the tree. The tree's prominent seedpod is said to resemble a weaver's shuttle.

Reaching heights of 20 and 30 feet and spreading 25 to 35 feet, these trees grow well in various soil conditions and can handle full or partial sun. To cultivate just the right shape, prune your redbud tree in summer after the bloom has ended. Native landscaping plants like the redbud have several advantages, including better disease resistance and more meaningful contributions to your local ecosystem.

The pink dogwood (Cornus florida 'Rubra') doesn't feel the pressure to compete with the glorious, attention-demanding Prunus species. Indeed, a pink dogwood can stand interwoven with another tree in dappled sunlight, and it's possible that you could hike right by it. But you won't. Because, in their natural habitat, there's something special in the scattery habit and near-white-to-intense-pink spring color of these trees. Of course, grown in full sun and cared for properly, dogwood can compete with any Prunus for sheer spring beauty. This in spite of the fact that dogwood flowers are actually ¼-inch misshapen yellow affairs.

Record scratch sound. Dogwood aficionados know what's coming next. Yes, the pink "blooms" of the pink dogwood aren't flowers at all, but bracts – modified leaves. What you should know about dogwood "flowers" is that they are a sublime cross that somehow suggests both lenten roses and liturgical vestments — but attached to a tree that could obviously not be more indifferent to liturgy.

Dogwoods aren't quite as easy to grow as the other trees on this list, but they aren't difficult, either. The trick seems to be getting them in the right situation from the start, and letting things proceed with a bit of ordinary care. They like rich, slightly acidic, well-drained soil in zones 5 to 8. But once established, they're really not that fussy. They also happen to be the state tree of Virginia.