Spring

Hardanger blossom: which week to book

No page can give you the date: at Lofthus there was full bloom on 20 April 2025 and snow on the plum trees on 1 May 2023. Come around 17 May and you get some of the blossom, not always the apple trees.

Hardanger Shop · 6 November 2026

Send it on hardanger.shop/guide/en/hardanger-blossom

If it is the pink apple trees you are coming for, book on the late side of 17 May.

• Full bloom on several varieties, Lofthus20 April 2025Knut Opedal to NRK
• Plum and morello ahead of the apple1–1½ weeksNIBIO, 10 May 2023
• Around 17 May you are “almost sure” ofsome blossomMekjell Meland, NIBIO Ullensvang

Two springs at Lofthus

“20. april så vi full blomstring på flere sorter”, the fruit farmer Knut Opedal at Lofthus told NRK in 2025: on 20 April he saw full bloom on several varieties. The morello was over, the plums were in full flower, and the apples were expected about a week later. Mekjell Meland, senior researcher at NIBIO Ullensvang, said the bloom should normally have come two to three weeks later.

Two years earlier, in the same village, there was snow on the branches. NIBIO published a picture of the plum varieties Edda and Jubileum “dekt med snø 1. mai”, covered in snow on 1 May, at Lofthus in Ullensvang. The photographer is Frank Maas.

On the calendar the two dates are eleven days apart. In the orchard they are two different springs.

Every page we read says the blossom varies. None of them shows it. This is what we found, year by year:

That is not a data series. It is what made it into print. NIBIO has thirty years of records, but they are not published, and we found no table. Note 2009 as well: back then, mid-May was called ten days early.

What 17 May promises

The rule you see everywhere is Meland’s. In 2023 he put it like this to NIBIO: “viss ein kjem rundt 17. mai, er ein nesten sikra å få med seg noko av blomstringa”. If you come around 17 May you are almost sure to catch some of the blossom. He also said what that means: in early years the late apple varieties are still in flower, and in late years you will at least get the plum and the morello.

Read it once more. Some of the blossom. Not the apple trees.

Visit Hardangerfjord prints the same rule without his name and tells you to “aim for the week around May 17th – Norway’s national day”. Its Norwegian page turns his “nesten sikra” into “nesten garantert”, almost guaranteed. Neither page says who said it, and the English one does not say that in a late year it is the plum you get.

And the rule is from 2023. Two years later Meland told NRK: “Vi ser en klar trend mot tidligere blomstring”, a clear trend towards earlier blossom. The coach firm Brustad Buss has moved its tour to the first half of May, because the blossom has come earlier “pga. varmere klima”, with a warmer climate. Whether 17 May holds in a year like 2025 is not something we can show, and we do not claim it.

The waves

The blossom comes in waves. Apricots are first. Then plum and morello, which by NIBIO’s account are in full bloom “omtrent ein til halvanna veke før epletrea”, about one to one and a half weeks before the apple trees. Among the apples, Summerred and Gravenstein are earliest. Aroma, Norway’s main variety, follows “ei lita veke seinare”, a little under a week later.

Visit Hardangerfjord, Visit Bergen and Fjords.com put the pears between the plum and the apple. NIBIO leaves pears out of its order.

Which wave you want decides the week. “Det er epleblomstringa som er mest spektakulær”, Meland said: the apple blossom is the most spectacular. It is the one in the drawing at the top and on the mug at the bottom: five round petals in white and pink, pink buds, yellow stamens. We chose it over cherry and plum when the design was drawn. Come in an early plum week and you will not see what is on the mug.

The shore before the slope, Sørfjorden before Ulvik

“Trea blomstrar først nede ved fjorden og nokre dagar seinare litt høgare oppe”, NIBIO writes: the trees flower down by the fjord first, and a few days later a little higher up. On the same day you can have open flowers at the water and buds on the hillside.

Sørfjorden is the heart of it. Visit Hardangerfjord says the orchards lie “tett på tett”, one after another, along the Rv 13 between Odda and Hardangerbrua. Visit Bergen also names the Fv 550. Inside Ulvik the blossom often starts “en til to uker senere”, one to two weeks later, than further out in the fjord, in Sørfjorden for example, says Brakanes Hotel, which reckons 15 to 25 May the safest time there. That is a hotel selling rooms. It is also the only source we found on the difference between places, and it says later, not earlier. For Eidfjord and Utne we found nothing on timing.

If you want to walk among the trees, Fruktstien, the fruit trail at Lofthus, is “ca 7 km rundt”, about 7 km round, “2 - 3 timar”, and graded easy. Parking is by the grocery shop at Lofthus, and at Opedal school in the school holidays. One walker on ut.no lists 5.7 km and 203 metres of climb, so do not expect it flat. In Ulvik, Frukt- og siderruta calls at three farms. Who makes the cider is in the cideries piece.

When you can know

Not in March. “Allereie i mars kan det kome telefonar frå turistar”, NIBIO says: tourists start phoning in March, and the answer is that there is not much to say that early. “Når ein kjem utover i april, blir prognosane sikrare og sikrare.” Through April the forecasts get surer. Visit Hardangerfjord says the same in its own way: “The blossom cannot be predicted more than a few weeks in advance.”

Visit Hardangerfjord says it posts updates every spring on Instagram, @visithardangerfjord. Its English page also sends you to the tourist offices “in Ulvik, Lofthus or Odda”. Since 1 November 2026 Odda has had “No in-person service available”. That page lists four offices in Ullensvang, and Lofthus is not one of them. Kinsarvik, Jondal and Røldal are “Closed for the season”. What you have is +47 48 07 07 77 and [email protected].

What the trees are doing today is not on this page. It was written in November.

What goes wrong

The weather can shorten the window too. “Kjølig vêr følgd av varme kan føre til intens og kortvarig blomstring”, NIBIO writes: cool weather followed by warmth can make the bloom intense and short. In April 2025 Meland said that if the temperature drops a little below zero while the trees flower, “i verste fall blir det ingenting”, at worst there is nothing. In the same article he said he was not worried on the west coast, where the climate is milder than in the east.

That autumn NIBIO reported that the cold during flowering had hurt both morello and plum. Leif Øie of the growers’ council, Grøntprodusentenes samarbeidsråd, said it. In 2026 it was cold when the plum trees flowered and the bees could not do their work, the researcher Jorunn Børve told NRK.

Those stories are about the crop. None of them says whether someone who came to look saw less. We do not know.

The other thing that goes wrong is the high ground. Our own photograph from Trolltunga was taken on 15 May 2017, two days before the rule’s 17 May, and the snow was still on the mountain. The week the orchards are the reason to come is not the week the mountain is green.

The week we would book

Stay several nights, across 17 May, not a day trip. If you can only have one week, it is that one. Bente Widding at Aga Sideri has “bilete av epleblomstring heilt frå så tidleg som 3. mai”, pictures of apple blossom from as early as 3 May, and says the season can run into the start of June. Visit Hardangerfjord’s English page has the best sentence on this: “If you really want to catch the full experience, plan to stay for several days.”

Do not deliberately book late April or the first week of May for the blossom. In 2025 it would have paid. In 2023 you would have seen snow on the plums.

If it is the pink apple trees you are coming for, book on the late side of 17 May. For Ulvik, later still, on the hotel’s word. That is our reading of NIBIO’s figures, not a line of theirs. In a year like 2025 the late side would have come too late for most of it.

And keep the room cancellable until late April if you can. That is our own advice. By then the people who watch the trees know more than anyone does in January.

We have not seen the blossom for this piece, we have not walked Fruktstien, and we have not phoned the tourist office. What we have done is set the dated springs side by side. None of the pages we read had done that.

From the shop

If you booked the wrong week, the mug has the last wave: the apple, five petals and pink buds.

• Eplekvist · Hardanger
• Blomstring · Hardanger
• Blomsterhage · Hardanger

We have no physical shop in Odda. What you order is printed to order and sent by post.