Japan is giving the United States 250 new cherry trees to help replace the hundreds that are being ripped out this summer as construction crews work to repair the crumbling seawall around the capital’s Tidal Basin.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made the announcement as President Joe Biden welcomed him to the White House on Wednesday for an official visit and state dinner. Biden said the gift is meant to mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. in 2026, adding, “Like our friendship, these trees are timeless, inspiring and thriving.”
In 1912, first lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador to the United States, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac River’s Tidal Basin. They were part of the 3,000 such trees Japan gave the U.S. in a symbol of the two countries’ friendship.
thanks, japan!
Thank you Japan!
I think this statesmanship is very cool. Taft gave them Dogwoods in return.
How many dogs per square kilometer in those woods?
That sounds ominous. Be careful lest you’ll attract inugami.
Walking through groves of Sakura, especially when the pedals are falling in the breeze, is a surreal experience. I never get tired of it.
pedals are falling in the breeze
Yikes, that sounds dangerous! Someone should make an AI generated image of that 😁
Prompt: Someone walking through groves of flowering trees. The flowers have pedals instead of petals. And pedals are falling from the trees.
Thanks, but it seems that one thing all free AI image generators have in common is ignoring the word “pedals” 😮💨
Yeah, I tried with free generators without success too.
@[email protected] Why can’t you guys tell the difference between pedals and petals? Explain yourself!
That’s pretty cash money of you, Japan.
Love how AP journalists say “Washington” instead of “Washington D.C.”, as if the state of Washington doesn’t exist.
Even the AP Stylebook recommends just using “Washington” to describe the Capitol because of its “Global recognition”, but as one of the 7.8 million Washingtonians who don’t live in D.C. on the other side of the country, I absolutely find this shit confusing.
Especially since Seattle’s cherry blossom festival starts today, so it would be the right timing for someone to gift us cherry trees if they were going to.
FYI since you’re into this kind of thing, ‘the Capitol’ refers to the US Capitol building.
‘The Capital’ means DC, the capital city in this case.
Hope you get some fresh Japanese Sakura. They are amazing.
Why couldn’t they also transplant and save the old trees?
Edit: ok I believe you guys, was just hopeful and curious
It is horrendously difficult to move even a single old tree
Is it? I’ve seen big truck digger attachments and cranes that do exactly that. Maybe they don’t survive it well or are very sensitive or something.
Some species travel better than others! Think a relatively small ball of roots vs a sprawling deep root network.
As the other commenter already said, it is really hard to transplant old trees. Think about how big tree roots get. There is no way to save 100% of a planted tree’s roots so cuts have to be made. And by the time you are able to free the tree from the ground, you’ve often cut too much of its roots for it to survive.
That plus they also have comparatively shorter lifespans.
Trees have a life span and they were getting old already.
If you’re in SF, there’s a map of every tree, so you can check out the blooms if you’re in town!
That’s awesome! That actually sounds like an app Peter / Miles would have in the new Spider-man games for a side quest… to take pictures of each bloom or something.
Damnit. If I didn’t read this just now after dragging my kid on 10 miles of hikes (with his Spidey water bottle!) the last few days, you’d have just given me a plan for today! 😁
But yeah… 100% doing that this weekend in his Spidey gear.
They really want that U.S Steel deal
Or they are just doing something cool.
Can they give us health care instead?
This is a temporary solution to a climate change problem. They can’t keep building seawalls. The Potomac will flood and the brackish water will kill many of the famed cherry trees.
We get it, everything sucks. Nothing is allowed to ever be good, even little things.
It seems that stretch of the Potomac doesn’t get much if any salt. It’s way up there and flows rather well, typically.
The tidal influence ends effectively at chain bridge, but they don’t call it the Tidal Basin for nothing, presumably.
Not to say salt couldn’t happen if there is a sustained drought + more sea level rise + a strong wind from the SE (Yes, that’s a big influence on the tidal fluctuation in the Chesapeake!)
Fun fact, sakura trees typically live to 20-40yo, and the DC Japanese Grove is more than 150yo now. They must be well cared for, or something else is going on.
