Courtesy of National Journal.

Peak bloom approacheth.

The National Park Service announced yesterday that the “indicator tree,” which usually blooms seven days before the rest of the Yoshinos, peaked over the weekend.

Which means I’m expecting a phone call.

My mother rings every year to excitedly ask if I’ve gone to see the famed blooms. I’ve lived here for a decade, mom. No, I’m not going down to the Tidal Basin unless I suddenly find myself free at 10:45 a.m. on a Tuesday with a mysterious reservoir of extra patience and goodwill.

But one thing I’ve never really done is take advantage of the fact that there are cherry trees scattered throughout the District.

Cherrypicker, a Tinder-like web app from National Journal, makes it easy for even the laziest among us to have a private photo shoot, unharried picnic, or just gaze into the blossoms’ eyes. Sure, they might not have a picture-perfect background, but that also means there aren’t thousands of people aggressively jostling to get the same exact shot.

Click the button, allow the site to access your location, and it will give you the location of the nearest Kwanzan, Yoshino, or Okame cherry tree cataloged by the D.C. Transportation Department; swipe left for directions. No dating woes here.

The web app (which doesn’t include the trees around the Tidal Basin) was created by Andrew McGill, the graphics director at the National Journal, using open data maintained by the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer.

So go show your neighborhood tree some love, and be sure to take a picture for mom.

For those who absolutely insist upon heading down to the memorials this week (or who have some disappointed visitors in town), the Park Service has some recommendations ahead of peak bloom.

Meantime, catch the lively little “First Lady” cherry tree that First Lady Obama planted in 2012 on the 100th anniversary of Tokyo’s gift of the 3000+ trees in 1912 (on the Potomac along Ohio Drive between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lincoln Memorials); the magnificent Asian natives, the Saucer Magnolias, Star Magnolia, Weeping cherrys and Forsythia, all blooming now at George Mason Memorial; and more Weeping cherrys along Ohio Drive from Mason to Lincoln Memorial interspersed with the fresh green leaves of the Napoleon Willows (native to China.) The early Weeping cherrys are on their own roots; ones grafted onto other root stock will bloom after the Yoshinos.