For the love of blossom

‘The cure for/this raucous world…/late cherry blossoms,’ wrote the great Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa. Love of blossom is universal. In Japan, hanami (which translates literally as ‘flower viewing’) is a tradition of celebrating the fleeting beauty of cherry blossom dating back to about 710AD. Each year, in late March and early April, crowds in their thousands flock to see the short-lived spectacle of the trees in bloom, often organising family picnics under the trees. To ensure hanami is not missed, news stations issue a ‘blossom forecast’.

The cultivated cherry tree or sakura holds significance in both of Japan’s great religions; in Shinto, sakura are thought to house sacred spirits and the ephemeral nature of cherry blossom mirrors the importance of transience in Buddhist doctrine.

The hanami celebration has caught on in countries far from Japan. In 2020, the National Trust launched #Blossomwatch in a bid to create a new tradition emulating hanami, asking people to share images of blossoms they had seen during their lockdown walks or from their windows. Over some two weeks, more than four million people viewed the images.