D.C.’s National Cherry Blossom Festival recently branched out to Reston with the planting of six Yoshino cherry trees at South Lakes High School.
Representatives of the festival and the Japanese airline All-Nippon Airways (ANA), which sponsored the trees, joined school officials and students on Nov. 13 for a ceremony to celebrate the plantings, which had taken place on Oct. 23.
Marked with a commemorative plaque, the Yoshino cherry trees — the same variety that dominates around the Tidal Basin in D.C. — were placed in a grassy area parallel to the school’s stadium wall and student parking lot, according to South Lakes High School Principal Carlos Seward.
He credited the school’s Japanese language and culture teacher, Nichole Mayfield, and her students with hosting the “beautiful ceremony.” The students were “very engaged” and “hands-on” during the event, with one reading a poem and others performing instrumental music, National Cherry Blossom Festival President Diana Mayhew says.
“The cherry blossom trees symbolize this growth in our students as well as the deep roots that the Japanese community has in Reston,” Seward told FFXnow in a statement. “We are excited to watch the growth and the blooming of the trees as a Reston community in the spring!”
Organized by a nonprofit, the cherry blossom festival commemorates Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki’s gift of 3,000 cherry trees to D.C. in 1912. At a launch event yesterday (Thursday), officials announced Anna August as the official artist and teased some of the planned programming for the 2025 festival, set for March 20 to April 13.
While the main festivities are concentrated in D.C., including a parade and the Blossom Kite Festival, the festival has grown in recent years to encompass the entire region. Next year, Fairfax County will see the return of the Mosaic District’s annual Art Blooms festival in Merrifield, among other activities, according to Mayhew.
The festival also involves communities outside of the District through its neighborhood tree planting program, which was introduced in 2002 and previously brought 17 cherry trees to Tysons.
For the past six years, the program has been supported by ANA, which contributed enough funding to plant 30 trees this year, Mayhew says. South Lakes is one of five schools chosen to get trees and the only one in Virginia.
This year’s other recipients include Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, which had a commemorative ceremony for its plantings this past Tuesday (Nov. 19), and Norwood School in Bethesda, which will have its ceremony today (Friday). Frederick Douglass High School in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, and American University in D.C. will have ceremonies on Dec. 2 and March 27, 2025, respectively.
South Lakes and the other schools were chosen for their Japanese language and immersion programs, Mayhew told FFXnow, noting that each site is carefully selected.
“The organization, the school, whoever is receiving them has to agree to take care of them, so we just don’t want to plop them anywhere,” she said. “So, we have to have the site inspected to make sure that it’s a good location for the trees and that there is a program to water them and care for them.”
Mayhew says the National Cherry Blossom Festival aims to engage as many people as possible with its mission of promoting unity and cultural exchanges between the U.S. and Japan.
While the planting sites for 2025 haven’t been determined yet, the festival anticipates continuing to partner with Fairfax County Public Schools and Visit Fairfax, the county’s tourism agency.
“Anytime we can connect to the community, and they feel part of it, that most likely bring will bring them to come participate in the event itself,” Mayhew said. “And then, when they get older and have kids, they bring their families down, and so, it just keeps the generations very much connected to the cherry trees.”
