Washington, D.C.’s cherry trees are approaching peak bloom, when the Tidal Basin will be awash in pink and white and the National Cherry Blossom Festival — running through April 12 — draws its usual crowds. The National Park Service defines peak bloom as more than 70% of blossoms open and currently projects that window between March 29 and April 1. The festival typically attracts over a million visitors each year.
The trees’ presence on the Potomac began as a persistent campaign by journalist Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, who proposed planting cherries along the waterfront in 1885. After years of advocacy, First Lady Helen Taft accepted a gift of trees. The initial shipment, arriving in 1910, was found to be diseased and infested and was destroyed to protect U.S. agriculture. Tokyo’s mayor, Yukio Ozaki, and others then organized a second donation: 3,020 trees in 12 varieties, which arrived on March 26, 1912.
Twenty of those trees were planted at the White House. First Lady Taft and Viscountess Iwa Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the north bank of the Tidal Basin. In a gesture of goodwill, President William Howard Taft sent at least 50 dogwood trees to Japan in return.
Public celebrations around the trees grew over time. Children reenacted the original planting in 1927, and the formal springtime Cherry Blossom Festival dates to 1935. The trees and festivities were disrupted during World War II: after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor some trees were vandalized and public celebrations were paused. The festival resumed in 1948.
Today the cherry trees are a living symbol of U.S.–Japan friendship and an important piece of Washington’s landscape; many trees are now more than a century old. Japan has continued the tradition of gifting trees, most recently pledging an additional 250 trees to commemorate America’s 250th birthday, with plans to plant them near the Washington Monument.
Caring for the trees is ongoing. The National Park Service leads bloom monitoring and maintenance, supported by festival organizers and volunteers. Organizers ask visitors to treat the trees respectfully: enjoy the blossoms but do not pick flowers, break branches, climb trunks, or otherwise damage the trees so they can thrive for future generations.