Your Road Trips Gardener is wondering how many cherry blossom festivals will still have cherry blossoms on the trees by the time the scheduled dates roll around!

Oh, well: it’s spring and we can celebrate the new season, even if the annual pink blooms are just a memory!

The Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival is scheduled for two weekends next month: April 14 and 15, 2012, and 21 and 22, 2012.

More than 200,000 people typically attend this celebration of Japanese culture in San Francisco’s Japantown, centered at Post and Buchanan streets.

Among the traditional arts and crafts will be bonsai and flower-arranging demonstrations, along with dancing, martial arts and taiko drumming.

Climax of the 45th annual event will be a grand parade on April 22 that begins at San Francisco City Hall and ends at the corner of Post and Fillmore streets.

(Photo courtesy of the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival)