| How Washington, D.C. Got Its Cherry Trees When Travel writer Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore returned home to Washington, D.C., from a trip to Japan in 1885, she was smitten. The country's flowering cherry trees had cast a particular spell on her. Scidmore believed cherry blossoms would be the perfect additions to the barren parkland that had just been reclaimed from the Potomac River's mud flats. In 1908 Scidmore attended an Arbor Day talk by David Fairchild and discovered a kindred spirit. The pair joined forces, and by 1909 a fellow cherry blossom enthusiast was finally in a position of power. On April 5, Scidmore outlined a plan to purchase cherry trees for the capital in a letter to first lady Helen Herron Taft, whom she'd briefly met in Japan. When the cherry trees arrived in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 1910, the Department of Agriculture discovered the trees were infested with insects and parasitic worms. When the second shipment of 3,020 cherry trees, composed of a dozen varieties gifted by Tokyo, reached the capital in March 1912, they were in perfect condition. On March 27, 1912, the first lady and the Japanese ambassador's wife dug their spades into the ground to begin planting the first two trees, which still stand today along the northwest wall of the Tidal Basin. The Japanese cherry blossoms have endured for more than a century in the nation's capital, and there are now more than 3,750 trees. Catch spring Fever and check out these titles |
