Friday, March 12, 2010

Flower Friday: Yoshino Cherry Blossoms

Yoshino Cherry Blossoms

This week's featured flowers belong to our earliest blooming tree: Yoshino cherry blossoms!  These pretty pinkish-white flowers brighten each March and April as they cover our cherry tree with fragrant blooms.  Our Yoshino Cherry tree is only a few years old and doesn't put on a huge display yet, but watching these trees bloom in parks and along sidewalks all over town is one of my favorite parts of early spring.  Almost as beautiful as the flowering period is watching the petals fall off in lovely snow-like showers mid-spring.  I love watching the white petals swirl along sidewalks & cover the ground in a beautiful floral carpet.  This tree likes full sun & is much-adored by our neighborhood birds.  For more information about Yoshino cherry blossoms, you can check out this MSU article or the cherry blossom & Yoshino cherry wikipedia pages. 

Book note:  I finished reading Amy Brecount White's Forget-Her-Nots and am about 300 pages into Catherine Fisher's Incarceron, so those reviews should be coming up soon.  Lisa Schroeder's It's Raining Cupcakes and Lisa Mantchev's Eyes Like Stars: Theatre Illuminata, Act I are up next in my TBR pile.  Happy reading!  :)

3 comments:

Amy Brecount White said...

"In the cherry blossom's shade there's no such thing as a stranger."

-Issa :-)

Jenni Elyse said...

I love cherry blossoms, but that's because of my obsession with anything Japanese. :) When I was in a Japanese speech contest 10 years ago, I told the story of Hanasakajiisan--the man who made trees blossom.

Violet said...

Amy - Such a beautiful poem! Thank you for sharing it. I had a difficult time choosing a flower to feature this week because I had just finished your wonderful book and my head was swimming with so many lovely floral thoughts. :-)

Jenni - The cherry blossom festivities in Japan sound like such fun! I'm not familiar with the tale of Hanasakajiisan & would love to hear it. Years ago I remember reading a legend about a beautiful spirit (or ghost-like girl) whose soft breath blew the petals from the cherry trees each spring, but that is all I remember of the story & it may not have been a traditional Japanese tale at all. Now I am curious & will need to do some searching for cherry blossom children's books.