Climate change has affected the phenology of plants and animals throughout the world, but few studies have evaluated climate responses of fruit trees in East Asia. In particular, the response of tree phenology to warming during different parts of the year has not been explored. We evaluated long-term records (1963–2008) of chestnut (Castanea mollissima Blume) first flowering, leaf coloring and length of the growing season from Beijing, China. Phenological dates were related with daily temperatures (subjected to an 11-day running mean) for the 12 months leading up to the respective events, using Partial Least Squares (PLS) regression. For each phenological indicator, regression results identified two relevant phases, during which temperatures were correlated with event timing or growing season length.