ALREADY A PAID SUBSCRIBER? SIGN IN
It’s my birthday so today I will be brief. There is a springtime out there to be part of. A moment of guaranteed awakening, coming to life and indecisive weather.
I know this time well. In observations that are marked by fresh growth. Snakeshead fritillaries chequered in shiny new grass, celandines blinking open in sunshine and the gold of marsh marigolds illuminating the wet hollows. The blossom trees billowing. Plums in full sail, pears just breaking and the cherries lighting up the still grey woodland.
The Sweet Cherry, or Gean or Mazzard (and Massard) is a tree I have a long relationship with. First encountered in my childhood home, where they had outstripped a long-forgotten garden and towered thirty meters high. We would hug their dark, rough and peeling trunks which by that time were seventy years old and leaning rakishly in their last chapter. The dark limbs and roots running widely over the surface and the light above as the flowering branches flushed palest pink bud and then white against often grey skies. They were the first trees to come crashing down as we cleared the garden, our family spending weekends making inroads into the undergrowth. It was as if they sensed the end of an era and they leant down gently in the night. One first, then another following, without a sound or associated drama.
We have them here as a borrowed view down the valley, youthful trees pushing up though the alder woods which line the stream and provide the cherry blossom with a dusky undercurrent of bruised purple. I planted them in the Blossom Wood in our first winter here. Young whips, navel high and easily identified for their richly red bark and promising buds. Living fast and not for much longer than eighty years, they make a quick presence. Growing vigorously up and forming a pyramid of limbs that make their own space before racing skyward to claim an early loftiness in a young wood. Though the double form Prunus avium ‘Plena’ lasts a whole week longer in bloom, the Gean is brief, but no briefer than the plums. A fortnight of expectation as the buds swell and give way to a week or ten days in a cool April.
Following on in early summer, the fruits, held in drupes and often pairs, ripen early. A dark, rich red and tart enough for you to make the mistake of thinking another day will make them sweeter. The birds will get there first if you do and it is the birds that distribute them and give the tree its specific name, Prunus avium. An April wonder.
Words: Dan Pearson | Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 10 April 2021
In 1997 I witnessed my first and never to be forgotten hanami. I was in Japan filming a series for Channel 4 and we arrived there at cherry blossom season to witness this important cultural connection to the natural world. The blossom forecast or ‘cherry blossom front’ announced by the weather bureau charted the daily progress as the opening blossom moved up the archipelago, so that parties could be planned in celebration.
We arrived in Kyoto with perfect timing, just as the first buds were beginning to open. The streets in the old town were lined with the sakura trees and the beautifully manicured limbs reached from behind garden walls and dipped down to hover above the pavements. As the week went on and the buds opened, a skim of petals began to pool on the dark water of the tree-lined canals and, with the mounting crescendo of bloom, came the parties of people that gathered under the branches. During the day the sakura made pale, luminous cloudscapes of blossom in the parks. By evening, for the night viewing of yozakura, they were illuminated with lanterns. Picnic blankets, almost touching like towels on a crowded beach, shadowed the canopies of the trees and the Japanese partied with sake and merriment to welcome the spring.
My most memorable blossom viewing was a trip we made to a cherry tree nursery. We had been instructed to visit in the afternoon to look at the trees in the fields and, with perfect timing, at dusk we were escorted to their king tree. This was their most magnificent Yoshino cherry, pruned over decades to form a wonderful canopy of limbs which were illuminated from below by a number of flaming braziers. The flickering light caught the first flower and, as darkness descended beyond the branches, we were held transfixed in a moment of absolute perfection. Sugary pink bud, a scattering of just opened flower and all the promise of what was yet to come in the season’s change. A metaphor for life that everyone there understood. Intense, breath-taking beauty, yet fleeting and ephemeral.
The Yoshino cherry (Prunus x yedoensis) is perhaps my favourite of all cherries and I have made room for one here, so that we too can celebrate the arrival of spring. Last weekend was our equivalent moment, with bud and expectation of flower. Today as I write, it is in full blossom and droning with honeybees. Though it is undoubtedly ornamental, with a live, bright pink to the bud, this rapidly pales as the flowers open. They are single, but massed on elegant growth, which reaches to form a widely-domed tree. I have planted a multi-stemmed tree here by the trough in front of the house so that, for the two weeks that it is in season, it is free to take centre stage. In time its limbs will reach out so that it can be doubly appreciated in the water. First in reflection and then with the petals scattered on the surface.
Although as a general rule I prefer to plant small, I invested in an air-pot grown specimen from Deepdale Trees for this key position. The airpot system encourages a dense and fibrous root system and, as a consequence, results in quick establishment. The Yoshino cherry is well-known for its wind tolerance and so far has done well here with our lack of shelter. Where the habit of some cherries can be stiff, the movement in the limbs and its arching growth make this a supremely elegant tree. It has a second season too with tiny cherries that the birds strip fast when they are ready and, in a good autumn, bright foliage of orange, russet and red.
It is important to dedicate some time to be with the tree when it has this moment. Stopping to look up into the energy caught in the blossom, take in the gentle perfume and the industry of the bees making the most of this early larder, time slows and the abundance and energy of spring are brought sharply into focus.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 14 April 2018
We are sorry but the page you are looking for does not exist. You could return to the homepage