When our children were small, we lived in Arlington, Virginia, for two years; this meant we had full access to the thousands of flowering trees that cover the landscape of northern Virginia each spring.
Before those two years, my encounters with the trees were like any other tourist who was lucky enough to visit Washington, D.C. growing up. But living among them, with the most famous just under five miles away at the Tidal Basin, was nothing short of spectacular. We could go when we felt like it, after the hordes of tourists were safely on their way back to their hotels for the day, and marvel.
I love the word resplendent. The definition itself is a little bland, but the thesaurus tells a different story: splendid, dazzling, brilliant, glowing, radiant, majestic, breathtaking. The word resplendent is often used to describe the most stunning of all the spring trees, the cherry tree, and for good reason.
On a bluebird day near peak bloom, these trees are awe-inspiring with their pink and white blossoms as far as the eye can see. On a cloudy day, they are nearly as amazing. Their origin is as interesting as the trees themselves: originally a gift from the city of Tokyo to the United States to be planted along the Potomac River, the first gift of 2,000 Yoshino cherry trees in 1910 was disastrous. They were insect-ridden, diseased and a threat to American growers; the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommended they be destroyed.
A story about destroying the trees that ran in a local newspaper, the Evening Star, reported that a dozen or so of the “buggiest trees” were set aside and “planted out in the experimental plot of the bureau, and there will be an expert entomologist with a dark lantern, and a butterfly net, cyanide bottle and other lethal weapons placed on guard over the trees, to see what sorts of bugs develop.” This image tickles me. It’s also an excellent example of problem-solving vs. giving up.
Two years later, and after many letters were exchanged between diplomats in Japan in the United States, a second attempt at a gift was made: 3,020 cherry trees of 12 different varieties were shipped across the Pacific to Seattle, then placed on trains to travel to Washington, D.C., to be accepted by first lady Helen Herron Taft. Taft and the wife of the Japanese ambassador, Viscountess Chinda, planted two Yoshino cherry trees at the Tidal Basin; the National Cherry Blossom Festival would grow from this ceremony.
News of sea level rise wreaking havoc on the Tidal Basin and the cherry trees reached beyond the East Coast this year because of the level of crisis. The original seawall has sunk 5 feet, while the sea level has risen a foot — in cherry tree math, this means roots and trunks are submerged in water for large portions of the day, rotting before our eyes. A total of 158 of the cherry trees will be torn out to make way for a new seawall that can withstand climate change for the next 100 years.
New trees will be planted, and they’ll continue to bloom. Hopefully, that is — warmer winters and a changing climate have forced earlier bloom times, and there is a point in this mixed-up timeline where the trees might not bloom at all.
Why do I tell you all this? It’s depressing to hear news of trees I love being chopped down and ground up as mulch, even as plans to replant are in place. Moping led me to fall down a rabbit hole about our pink national treasure, where I discovered two people that completely restored my hope that all will be well.
Ruth Dix, a horticulturalist from Maryland who worked at the National Arboretum for many years, made it her life’s work to understand propagation of new cherry trees, and her work is enjoyed across Washington, D.C., and beyond as her stronger, more resistant-to-disease trees stand tall. Roland Jefferson, a World War II veteran and Howard graduate who could only find work labeling plants when he was first hired at the Arboretum in the 1950s, went on to be promoted to botanist and later became the foremost botanist, historian and ambassador of cherry trees in the U.S. Their work, in large part, is why our national capital can be resplendent every spring.
Jefferson died at 97 in 2020. Dix died at 80 in 2023. Their lives are a testament to the idea that the meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit. They won’t see the new cherry trees eventually bloom, but their belief in still doing their part in their time and for the future is inspiring. And, an invitation.
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Elizabeth Dillow is a writer, photographer and graphic designer in Cheyenne. She rarely passes a flowering tree without taking a picture of it. She can be reached at edillow@mac.com.
