Washington DC's Cherry Trees

From the March 17th Seattle Times "D.C. cherry trees have witnessed a century of American history."

Many are looking their age and have lived double their expected life expectancy in North America. These Yoshino cherry trees line a short distance along the Tidal Basin on the southwest section of the National Mall.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of their 1912 planting. Only a few dozen of the originals remain, mostly located by the new Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial.

They have survived because of genetic good luck, yearly pruning and extra summer waterings despite droughts, hurricanes, marches and even anger. Gilbert Shupe is the supervisor of an eight-man crew responsible for the trees.

In 1912, this section had only recently been filled in with muck pulled from the Potomac River. By the 1920s, these cuttings from Tokyo's Arakawa River and a gift from the Japanese government were putting on their annual dazzling spring display.

The 3,700 trees are expected to be in bloom on or about March 24th this year.

Four of them were "mysteriously" cut down three days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

A Pretty Piece of History. --Cooter

About Those DC Cherry Blossoms

While going through some of my old National Geographics, I came across an article in the April 1997 issue about how Washington, DC's cherry trees came to be.

They came about through the initial efforts of writer and photographer Eliza R. Scidmore. After returning from a trip to Japan in 1885, she decided the beautiful cherry trees she had seen there would look great on the newly dredged and reclaimed land along the Potomac River.

Sh encountered lots of adversity until William Taft was inaugurated president in 1909. His wife, Helen had also been to Japan and ordered 90 cherry saplings from a Pennsylvania nursery and had them planted along the Potomac.

When Tokyo heard this, it sent 3,000 more flowering cherries in 1912.

And the Rest Was History. --RoadDog