by Connie Oswald Stofko
Cherry trees are already flowering in the Japanese Garden in Delaware Park. Will there still be cherry blossoms to enjoy during the 11th Annual Buffalo Cherry Blossom Festival next week?
“I feel 100 percent confident that we will have cherry trees in bloom for the festival,” said Paula Hinz, co-founder of the Buffalo Cherry Blossom Festival.
The festival will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, April 27 and 28 inside the The Buffalo History Museum, 1 Museum Court (formerly 25 Nottingham Court), Buffalo, and outside in the Japanese Garden, which is behind the museum.
There’s a reason Hinz can be confident that there will be cherry blossoms next week. The Japanese Garden, a gift from Buffalo’s Sister City of Kanazawa, Japan, was established in 1962, and its planners cleverly chose several varieties of cherry trees, from early-blooming to late-blooming trees.
The early trees, which are in bloom now, are Akebono, Yoshino and Snow Goose. All three have flowers with five petals.
The late-blooming trees, Kanzan (or Kwanzan), have double flowers with 10 to 20 petals. They’re bright pink and look like carnations, Hinz said. The blossoms will open when the temperatures rise, even if the sky is cloudy.
“It’s the warmth, not the sun, that sets them in motion,” she said.
We might be able to see both early and late-blooming trees in flower at the same time, depending on the weather. But if it rains this week, the petals on the early-blooming trees may drop. There’s a lesson in that, though.
“Life is short,” Hinz said. “We should celebrate the moment we have.”
The festival is about more than cherry blossoms. It’s a celebration of our Sister City in Japan, Kanazawa, as well as Japanese culture.
Some of the activities are:
- Origami
- Taiko drums
- Live music
- Bonsai
- AKG art truck
- Orienteering
- Food trucks
See the list of events here.
An outdoor tea ceremony may take place in the afternoon of Saturday or Sunday, April 27 or 28, weather permitting. If it will take place, the details will be announced on the Buffalo Cherry Blossom Festival website on Monday, April 22. If you see nothing there, the tea ceremony won’t take place.
One more thing: be kind to the cherry trees.
They’re fragile. (Many of us didn’t know that!) That’s why signs have been set up to advise people on how to enjoy the trees without harming them.
Just sitting on a branch could break it.
And then there are the many smaller wounds. Someone breaks off a twig and puts it in their hair. Someone else shakes the branch to make the petals drop off. Another runs their hand down a branch to pull all the blossoms off, throws the blossoms in the air and takes a picture.
“It’s not just one person; it’s hundreds of people doing this,” Hinz said.
As in any other garden, be thoughtful as you walk through.
And if you want to help even more, you can volunteer in Delaware Park or other Olmsted Parks.
