Cherry blossom is visible here from September to May. That is the claim on Ito's own tourism site, which describes Sakura no Sato as a place where various kinds of cherry can be seen across that long stretch of the year. The site covers about forty thousand square metres and holds around a thousand trees of some forty varieties.

Forty varieties is what buys that length; no single kind of cherry flowers for more than a fortnight. The published sequence runs roughly like this.

Kanzakura and Kawazu-zakura open in February, when the rest of the country is still in winter. Early Oshima cherry, Jogasaki cherry and Ito cherry through March. Somei-yoshino at its peak in April.

Which means the place does not really have a cherry season. It has a question instead: which variety is out at the moment. Two thirds of the year something is flowering, so the ordinary sentence about going to see the cherry blossom does not quite work here; you would have to say which one you meant. Mount Omuro, a grass-covered volcanic cone with a crater at the top, lies directly across from the site. It is in every photograph taken here, whether or not anyone intended it to be.