Cherry trees in Japan, hanami

[KyushuCalanthe]

I just finished putting together this video on the more common varieties of flowering cherry in Japan. This turned out to be quite a project. The clips used spanned a two year period and halfway through producing it I got a nasty case of food poisoning. Surviving that, I finally finished editing it tonight. Wow, what a marathon! I hope you enjoy it.

Japanese Cherry Trees in Japan

And the companion article:

Hanami Article

 

[SlipperFan]

Wow! What a sight!!!

 

[Hera]

Wow! That's beautiful.

 

[naoki]

Wonderful video, Tom! It is very educational as usual. I didn't know there are so many different sakura species. I also didn't know somei-yoshino, which is highly tied to Japanese culture (e.g. symbolism of transient/ephemeral life of human, bushi-dou etc), is a hybrid origin. I'm glad that you didn't show the ugly side of Hanami although I do miss drinking sho-chu, getting drunk during the day and taking a nap under sakura!

 

[abax]

Tom, you've put together a wonderful tour, but where are the bees? I
expected to see lots of bees on those lovely flowers? Do birds eat the
cherries on some of these trees or are they ornamental like our ornamental
crabapples?

 

[Ozpaph]

Temperate climate flowering plants are something you miss in the sub-tropics.

 

[Trithor]

Lovely!

 

[Dido]

Great I love it thanks for sharing

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

I also didn't know somei-yoshino, which is highly tied to Japanese culture (e.g. symbolism of transient/ephemeral life of human, bushi-dou etc), is a hybrid origin. I'm glad that you didn't show the ugly side of Hanami although I do miss drinking sho-chu, getting drunk during the day and taking a nap under sakura!

Yes, hanami can be rather wild at times. I have my own name for it - sakemi (alcohol viewing) :rollhappy: BTW, since somei-yoshino is a recently produced plant, a lot of the symbolism around it is in fact no more traditional than say the image of Santa Claus in America (largely constructed by Coca-Cola and a department store chain, forgot which one). For a cherry with deeper history, look to P. jamasakura, the mountain cherry. It shows up in poems, etc. for far longer since it has been around before the beginning of Japanese culture

Tom, you've put together a wonderful tour, but where are the bees? I
expected to see lots of bees on those lovely flowers? Do birds eat the
cherries on some of these trees or are they ornamental like our ornamental
crabapples?

They are there Angela, just tucked under the flowers Seriously, there are plenty around, but some of the shots were taken on pretty darn cold and windy days. On still days you cannot easily approach the blossoms for all the traffic. Of course the loss of bee populations in Japan is serious too - nothing like in China - but probably as bad as the states. These are ornamental forms, so the fruit produced is very small and not very sweet. Two Asian species are grown for their fruit here, but I didn't include them in the video.

Temperate climate flowering plants are something you miss in the sub-tropics.

Much more of a shift in warmer winters around southern Japan and there will be fewer to no cherry flowers here either. That includes places like Kyoto, Nara, and the Tokyo area. I'm not just making this up, the Japanese Meteorological Agency has estimated that winters on Kyushu may not be cold enough to properly vernalized the flower buds some winters within another 40 years or so (based on the steady increase in temperature seen over the past 100 years here).

 

[Erythrone]

Wonderful tour!!! Thanks a lot! Too bad those cherry trees cannot be grown successfuly here... But there is hope ! Thanks to global warming....

 

[Migrant13]

Thanks as always for such great and informative videos. Where did you live when you were a kid in NY state?

 

[abax]

Actually, not so good news as climate change will change everything. The
decline in bee populations is a very serious matter. The local bee keepers
here import Italian bees and the native bees are becoming rather scarce.
If one looks to the future of crop pollination as just one example of climate
change, the outlook is bleak. The imported bees aren't faring so well
either.

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

Thanks as always for such great and informative videos. Where did you live when you were a kid in NY state?

About an hour north of NYC in northern Westchester out in the woods of Cortland, at that time unincorporated so we had a Peekskill mailing address.

Actually, not so good news as climate change will change everything. The
decline in bee populations is a very serious matter. The local bee keepers
here import Italian bees and the native bees are becoming rather scarce.
If one looks to the future of crop pollination as just one example of climate
change, the outlook is bleak. The imported bees aren't faring so well
either.

Agreed. The loss of bees is truly alarming since, as you hint, they are linked to all land based food production. Notice I don't say some food production, literally all terrestrial food production ultimately comes out of insect pollination, with bees being the kings of food crops. Serious indeed...

 

[JeanLux]

Thanks a lot Tom for this beautiful and very informative walk!!!! Jean

 

[goldenrose]

THANKS for sharing with us!
Makes me want to head to the garden & nursery centers and get a couple of cherry trees!