Flowers in the Azalea District in Tyler, Texas, on Monday, Feb. 26, 2018. (Chelsea Purgahn/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

With less than two weeks to go before the kickoff of Tyler’s annual Azalea and Spring Flower Trail, flowers are starting to bloom in Tyler.

Tulip trees are bursting with pink all over the trails, and daffodils are adding pops of yellow to the Tyler Municipal Rose Garden.

Holli Fourniquet, the vice president of marketing for Visit Tyler, said the city’s iconic azaleas likely will bloom in time for the ribbon cutting on the Azalea Trail on March 16.

Fourniquet said the current temperature is perfect for the azaleas to bloom. She’s optimistic that because the temperature dropped below freezing in Tyler several weeks ago, it won’t drop that low again.

“It’s looking like the flowers are going to bloom on time and be beautiful,” she said. “That’s what we’re expecting. The weather was perfect and the freeze was early enough that it didn’t really affect the flowers that much.”

Tyler’s annual Azalea Trail attracted about 38,000 people in the three weekends of the Azalea Trail in 2017, according to Fourniquet. That’s lower than usual because the flowers bloomed early last year.

Fourniquet said Visit Tyler is expecting much higher attendance in 2018. “We’ll probably have way more than that just because of the timing of the flowers blooming at the same time,” she said.

Joel Barnes, the chief meteorologist for CBS 19, said it is hard to predict weather several weeks into the future, but he doesn’t currently anticipate any snow or ice coming in that time period.

Greg Grant, the Smith County horticulturist for the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension, is predicting a normal season.

“Cold winter affected camellias but (I) haven’t seen any damage on azaleas other than some foliage,” Grant said in an email. 

Guy and Joan Pyron are hosting the Azalea Trail ribbon cutting this year. The couple has participated in the festival for 24 years.

Guy Pyron was less optimistic about the azaleas than Fourniquet. He said gardeners generally expect the last freeze could come anytime before March 15. Additionally, he said the azaleas haven’t bloomed yet, and may not bloom in time for the Azalea Trail.

“This year they’re very, very tight,” Pyron said of the buds. “I’m not sure they’re going to show at all. On a day … with the sun shining, they start popping up, but I’m not sure they’ll be fully out.”

The Azalea Trail tradition dates back to 1929 when a nurseryman named Maurice Shamburger sent boxcar loads of azaleas by train from Georgia to Tyler, according to a history from Visit Tyler.

That year, Mrs. Sarah Butler of the then-Tyler Courier Times Telegraph supported Shamburger in his efforts to plant azaleas around the city and planted her own azaleas at her own home, according to Visit Tyler.

The azaleas grew in popularity. In 1960, the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce established an official route five-miles long with 60 houses where visitors could see azaleas, according to Visit Tyler.

The Azalea Trail brought 15,000 visitors in 1962, and the tradition has grown to attract, in some years, more than 100,000 visitors to the city, according to Visit Tyler.

A hallmark of the event is the Azalea Belles, a group of young women in high school who dress in antebellum gowns and act as ambassadors on the trail. There are 35 Azalea Belles in 2018 who attend high schools across Smith County.

The event runs for three weekends and ends April 1.

TWITTER and INSTAGRAM: @_erinmansfield