Cherry Blossom Sky

Every start of spring in Vancouver, much of the city is covered by a blanket of wafty, delicate profusion of every shade of pink. This is my third spring here and even though I've seen it before, the sight of entire roads lined with fluffy, puffy pink trees takes my breath away. Every time.

I'd always associated cherry blossoms to Japan but there are an incredible 130,000 cherry blossom trees planted in the parks, roads and boulevards throughout Greater Vancouver and in most recent years a Cherry Blossom Festival runs from around mid March to April. This comprehensive website gives a map of where the different cherry species can be found. It also organises events that have a somewhat Pacific Zen feel about it. Like trolley tours , Cherry Jam Concerts and Haiku competitions. This won the 2007 Canadian Haiku award

street hockey
young boys shoot cherry petals
into the net

Terry Ann Carter
Ottawa, Ontario

The story of Vancouver's Cherry trees starts way back in the early 1930s. The mayors of both Kobe and Yokohama presented the Vancouver Park Board with 500 Japanese cherry trees for planting at the Japanese cenotaph in Stanley Park. These were to honour Japanese Canadians who had served in WWI. By the mid 1900s, the park board started to replace the older and much larger elm, maple and plane trees that were traditionally planted with cherry trees. Because the roots of the larger trees were breaking up pavements & roads.

And now for a fleeting 2-3 weeks, the sunlight is made gentle with the frosty glow of pinks and plums of the Cherry Blossom. Life is good!

And in celebration of Spring ( altho it did snow a bit not an hour ago), I've entered this picture of a Cherry Blossom Sky to the Fuel My Blog photo competition, called "Outside My Window".