Cherry Allee Project

Article in APLD Designer	Plant Selection	Design Sketches

The Project

The Cherry Allée project was funded by a resident of Foulkeways retirement community in North Wales, Pennsylvania, as a gift to the community. It was envisioned by its donor in the following way:

Cherry Trees – that’s what I like, and I would like to see them blooming from the window in the dining room.

I would like to see the Cherry Trees while walking on the Big Oak Walk, as well as from the apartment. New potential residents would see them bloom from the road while driving into our campus. Even the Japanese bridge should be a viewing platform.

The beds that the Cherry Trees sit in should be large enough so that the trees can develop naturally and be safe from lawn mowers.

My favorite colors are blue and pink. I like grape hyacinths and pink daffodils.

For this project, I chose trees, grasses and bulbs that deer don’t like so they wouldn’t eat them. Grasses were added to capture the wind.

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The Denouement

A few months after completing this project, I got a call from a friend asking, “want to come to Japan with me and see the cherry trees?”

Hopeful phrases sprang to our lips - “The yen has gone from 80 to a dollar to 130 – I could deduct some of the cost because of my recent commission – after all, I’m still working as a landscape designer.”

“What’s that? You say it’s spring and your son in law is there and speaks Japanese? Yes!”

Now, some might say, we have cherry trees here – why go to Japan?

Well, because they plant many more of them – Hirosaki Jo castle in Hirosaki, Northern Honshu, has five thousand cherry trees.

Five thousand!

They plant them up on hills and berms so you can stroll underneath them. They place them in elemental settings true to Feng Shui principals of wind-water-earth-fire, a theme which was especially evident in a garden at our hotel (Okura in Tokyo), where a glass wall was all that separated the garden from the entire restaurant. You see weeping cherries in bloom, built into the hill, framing waterfalls and fountains set off by two metal censers on legs in which charcoal blazed after dark, and instinctually realize the spiritual aspect of the scene.

Wind-water-earth-fire-stone-metal – and still they make more of them, for it is a labor of love.

I learned of a special event that still takes place in Japan called “Hanami” or “flower viewing.” People travel throughout Japan to attend, starting in southern Honshu in early April and continuing north through the blooming season.

A blue tarp is placed under the cherry trees and revelers enjoy a substantial picnic lunch of sushi and sake while the petals cover them and make soft pink designs on the blue tarps.

You cannot understand Japan until you understand the reverence of the people for flowers.