A Yoshino Cherry Tree for Jennifer Vann

Let us plant a tree for Jennifer today

Jennifer and Stephen liked to walk that hill above, 🍂 The best view in the arboretum 🍂 with mountains to the east 🍂 a meadow below 🍂 and a grove of cherry, quince and crabapple in the distance 🍂 where we now stand. 🍂 In spring, these trees abloom in pink and white, 🍂 people find their favorite spots with favorite views beneath a favorite tree.

We plant a new tree here, a Yoshino cherry, 🍂 the first the arboretum has ever had. 🍂 Few trees are so loved 🍂 that countries give them to other countries as a gift 🍂 So inspiring 🍂 that when received, their planting starts a festival 🍂 So cherished 🍂 that a sharpening axe sparks revolt. 🍂 The Yoshino is one.

Let me explain. 🍂 In 1912 Japan sent 3000 trees to the United States to commemorate friendship. 🍂 Most of these were Yoshino cherries. 🍂 First Lady Taft and Viscountess Chinda 🍂 planted two along the Tidal Basin in the Nation’s Capitol 🍂 and began the National Cherry Blossom Festival. 🍂 Today, the city is seldom bigger than when those cherries bloom.

In 1938 🍂 many of the original cherries stood in the footprint of a proposed memorial 🍂 for the horticulturist 3rd president, Thomas Jefferson, and were slated for destruction. 🍂 Women stormed the White House to complain 🍂 then chained themselves to trees. 🍂 They lost the trees to bronze and marble but won the day. 🍂 More trees soon filled the Tidal Basin, from full to overflowing.

So let us plant a Yoshino cherry.

At first glance a new tree in fall is unconvincing. 🍂 Leafless, fruitless, gray as the grayest day 🍂 it can seem to memorialize sadness rather than a joyous life 🍂 but look more closely. 🍂 The branch tips are already swollen with next spring’s flowers, 🍂 each bud a wink that says ‘you’ll see.’ 🍂 We ask nothing of a tree we plant in autumn, 🍂 feed it, water it, protect it, 🍂 bless it in our many ways 🍂 and wish it best through winter’s journey.

But then we wink back at the tree. 🍂 See you in the spring.

Now let us plant a cherry tree for Jennifer. 🍂

[Tree Dedication by T’ai Roulston, Curator, State Arboretum of Virginia]