Washington DC's Cherry Trees Peace Garden on the Potomac

For dear friends Dr. Kaz & Yukie Umetsu

photo: Molly Wallwork

This is the 100th year Washington DC has delighted in the most famous display of Japanese cherry trees in the United States. Each year Washingtonians and visitors alike are abuzz with the cherry trees' progress from bud to glorious delight, times thousands of trees.  In Japan this blossom euphoria is called Hanami, a party-like blossom viewing excursion.  In Washington this spring the peak blossom day was Sunday March 18th.  The Tidal Basin was awash in pale pink & white blossoms and waves of Hanami-inspired tourists. 

photo: Molly Wallwork

How the Tidal Basin's was transformed from a miasmic morass to one of the beautiful cityscapes is as captivating as its most inspiring aspect is overlooked, that of Peace Garden.   

What is now known as the Tidal Basin was originally a channel of the Potomac River.  Long Bridge was built in the early 1800s from the District to Virginia. Over the years it silted up around the bridge pylons, known as Potomac Flats, a mosquito infested swamp prone to flooding.  After severe flooding in 1875 the National Park Service requested the Army Corps of Engineers create a flood and sanitary plan for the Potomac River.  This project involved a massive dredging operation.  District engineer Major General Peter C. Hains used the methods the Corps used in the levee work on the Mississippi River.  The dredged river channel became the Tidal Basin, the dredged dirt created 600 additional acres of solid ground.

Looking at the map below you can see how the former river bottom added to the modern boundary of the National Mall, sites of most of the pre-21st century memorials including the Lincoln, Jefferson and F. D. Roosevelt Memorials.

Pencil drawing by Carol Wallwork based on Army Corps of Engineers map

 What to do with the bare, uncultivated land once the project was complete became an issue.  In 1897 Congress dedicated the reclaimed land to be held and used as a park for recreation and pleasure of the people, called West and East Potomac Parks.

photo: Molly Wallwork

Back stepping a few years:  Ever since travel writer, D.C.-born Eliza Scidmore returned from Japan in 1885 she advocated planting Japanese Cherry trees on the reclaimed land.  By 1909 her proposal gained momentum, aided by new First Lady Helen Taft.  Also the successful cultivation of Japanese cherry trees in Maryland by U.S. Department of Agriculture plant explorer David Fairchild helped build a latticework of support for the idea.  

photo: Claire Wallwork

 The keystone however, was a war in the east, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-06.  Like too many wars it was a lose-lose proposition, for both the troubled reign of tzar Nicholas II and for cash-strapped Japan.  U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was the chief mediator at the peace conference, held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, resulting in the Treaty of Portsmouth, in September 1905.  His successful results garnered Roosevelt the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.  (The Nobel Prize Award was established by Alfred Nobel after his death in 1896.  The first prize year was 1901. From my limited research Theodore Roosevelt appears to have been the first American awarded the prize.)

photo: Molly Wallwork

Amid extensive back-and-forth over many years between Washington and Japan, the brokering of the peace with Russia was the inspiration for the city of Tokyo and Japanese chemist Dr. Jokichi Takamine, to donate 2,000 cherry trees to Washington.  Alas, by the time they arrived they were diseased and had to be destroyed.  Undaunted by this setback another 3,000 trees were dispatched successfully.  On March 27, 1912 Eliza Skidmore, First Lady Helen Taft and Japanese Ambassador Sutemi Chinda and his wife Iwa planted the first trees.

photo: Molly Wallwork

Over the course of one hundred years our two countries have endured some of the bleakest days of human warfare and profound, inspiring peace.  Just last year the United States helped with the harrowing battle to save severely damaged nuclear reactors in Japan after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck the north east coast causing a devastating tsunami.  In 2005 Japan donated power generators, special equipment, several million dollars and emergency supplies, tents, etc.

photo: Claire Wallwork

 Called Sakura in Japan these graceful cherry trees are important in Japanese art and culture.  Celebrated in their earliest artworks the cherry tree embodies joy and beauty.   We can add to their colorful genealogy that of graceful diplomats. 

photo: Claire Wallwork

Thank you Molly & Claire for your lovely photos, inspiring me to share them with others.

March 26, 2012

Postscript: Today's Wall Street Journal has a full page ad for a Japanese pharmaceutical company who's first president was Dr. Takamine Jokichi, the co-benefactor of Washington DC's Japanese cherry trees.  Among his accomplishments was his discovery of the hormone adrenaline.

Post postscript:  Here's the photo,  March 2005

My mom, Washington DC 1952  photo taken by mystery photographer, possibly...me for mom's looking down

Carol, Washington DC 1952 photo by Julia