When does autumn olive bloom in Virginia?

Most often in April. Across 167 dated, research-grade observations of Elaeagnus umbellata in Virginia, the flowering season runs roughly April.

Peak April In flower 167 Examined 470 State Virginia

Flowering 167 in flower of 470 examined

55%

82%

52%

Proportion of examined Elaeagnus umbellata in Virginia in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	0	4	too few examined
Feb	0	5	0%	0% to 43%
Mar	11	20	55%	34% to 74%
Apr	142	174	82%	75% to 87%
May	12	23	52%	33% to 71%
Jun	1	11	9%	2% to 38%
Jul	1	20	5%	1% to 24%
Aug	0	86	0%	0% to 4%
Sep	0	63	0%	0% to 6%
Oct	0	45	0%	0% to 8%
Nov	0	15	0%	0% to 20%
Dec	0	4	too few examined

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Elaeagnus umbellata in Virginia observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 167 of 470 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 2 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.wt38fd.

What this is, and what it is not

This is a record of when people in Virginia found Elaeagnus umbellata in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Virginia, so it is not the species’ global average dragged onto a map: the same plant flowers on different dates in different places, and that is the entire point of the page.

It will not tell you what your particular plant will do this year. Bloom time moves with the season, with altitude, and with the weather, and a warm February pulls everything forward. We publish the distribution and the sample size, and we refuse to draw a month that too few people examined.

The plant

Elaeagnus umbellata

autumn olive

Sourcesevery claim on this page

GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in Virginia. Every record achieved iNaturalist quality grade Research, which is applied upstream at export. 10.15468/dl.wt38fd. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.