Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom

The cherry trees donated by the Japanese Association of Northeast Ohio (JANO) are in full bloom. This year is the 100th Anniversary of the gift of cherry trees to the United States from Japan for the mall in Washington D.C. This year the blooming is early. I tweeted last night that I wished one of the news organizations would broadcast something. Little did I know when I made that tweet that Newsnet5 already had!

Yesterday about 15 of us had an impromptu "hanami" which was a lot of fun. Check out the pictures below.

If you have a chance, you'll want to stop by today since I think the inbound rain and storms will knock all the blossoms off the trees.

Neohawk Cherry Tree in Full Blossom

The other day I posted about the cherry trees donated by JANO to the Brookside Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks being in full blossom. Well, our own cherry tree is in full blossom as well.

Our tree actually produces cherries as you may remember from last year(see my posts here and here). If I recall directly, the number of cherries is directly related to the number of blossoms on the tree. If so, then we will have a bumper crop this year. Of course weather and birds will most likely reduce the actual number of cherries we get, but still I think it will be a lot.

National Cherry Blossom Festival: Stand with Japan

I just found this site today - National Cherry Blossom Festival which is kind of embarrassing since a friend of mine from JANO has been telling me about it for a couple of years. But I noticed Elly had linked to on facebook. So I checked it out.

More importantly, though, I noticed this event they are having - "Stand with Japan"

The Festival invites you to Stand With Japan at the Washington Monument, followed by a walk around the Tidal Basin in the spirit of hope and rebuilding.

Beginning at 6:30pm on March 24, people will gather at Sylvan Theater (15th Street and Independence Avenue, SW) before walking the Tidal Basin. All donations received throughout the fundraising effort will go directly to the National Cherry Blossom Festival Red Cross Online Donation Site, directly benefiting the Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami fund.

Sakura Watch April 26 2009

満開！

Our cherry tree is in full blossom. Also, via a comment on JANO's blog, the trees an the Brookside Reservation of the Cleveland Metropark are in full blossom. If you want to see 130 cherry trees in blossom, today's the day.

Here's the map to the Brookside Reservation:

View JANO Cherry Trees @ Brookside Reservation in a larger map

Sakura Watch April 11 2009

Okay, so I missed last week for my weekly Sakura Watch. Actually, I didn't I just never got around to getting the pictures off my camera. This week though, I did and without further ado, here they are.