“Loveliest of trees, the cherry now”
“Loveliest of trees, the cherry now”
Entering the Secret Garden through the wrought iron gate in the old faded wall, I have a decision to make: do I turn right or left? Either view is punctuated by white cherry blossoms dipping their branches at shoulder height. Underneath, the long-veined tulip leaves are still standing straight up, pale green and just waiting for a little sunshine to set them blooming through the curving borders.
The dogs have chosen “right” and are already running past the garden bench used in a scene with Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton. The path narrows and leads us all out past the thick blue green juniper into the beginning of the main avenue in the Wood of Goodwill.
Leaving by a weighted wooden gate toward the sparse tufted expanse of meadow, the Labradors race off tumbling each other over, reluctant to relinquish any tennis ball they find hidden in the grass. Over the coming months, these acres will develop into the densest mass of wildflowers but just now only the softest coloured primroses can be seen whilst the tiny gathered lampshades of the cowslips are still wondering whether to make an appearance.
Following the waggling tails of the spaniels along the bottom edge in and out of the hazel and the young cherry trees, the birdsong increases.
During Covid the Japanese Embassy in London kindly offered us 21 cherry trees and some of them line this path. They are still slim and willowy but full of delicate blossom and the hope of warmer weather to come.
Flowering cherry trees are part of Japan’s history, culture and identity. For centuries in Japan spring has been marked by the practice of “Hanami”, of holding feasts, picnics and parties underneath the blooming Sakura (cherry) trees. Some of these sacred trees are over 1,000 years old yet the fleeting joy of the beauty of the blossom symbolizes the ephemeral nature of life. The delicate layered flowers are usually pink or white with single, double and semi-double forms and can have anything from a few petals to well over one hundred.
Cherry trees blooming – fleetingly - en masse were traditionally used to define the year’s harvest and they came to embody wabi-sabi philosophy and Shinto ideals of impermanence, hope and renewal. More prosaically, cherry trees are also an important source of food for birds, insects and mammals.
Standing and looking at any of these trees with the ground so wet, they are beguiling in their brightness dream and a breath of spring, a reminder of that Japanese proverb:
“Like cherry blossoms, we too shall bloom in adversity.”
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59 Comments
Lady Carnarvon, Thank you for sharing your beautiful Secret Garden with us! It cheers me to see the beautiful Cherry trees although I cannot come in person, enjoy your day!
Enjoy your weekly words. Love seeing the dogs too.
Lovely - what a wonderful description of spring and hope for us all!
Oh what a lovely story to read over my morning coffee.....very nice !! thank you
It's cherry pink...and. apple blossom time! Remebering that oldie but goodie favorite song. absolutely lovely and uplifting this Monday walk with the doggies tale. what a beautiful garden and wildflower area Highclere has. I remember my April visit years ago, Spring at Highclere is special, wishing to visit one day again.
Dear Lady Carnarvon,
Beautiful blog & beautiful photographs, thanku!
I also love Japanese Flowering Cherry trees, & one year I got a grafted a cherry on a Weeping Willow & the result was astounding the following Spring: A stunning flowering Weeping Willow! I'm sorry I no longer have the Photos of it, but many years, a divorce, & a move from Scotland to East Anglia have seen my photos lost in the mists of time.....but I still see my beautiful tree in my mind....
Happy Spring ma'am, to you & everyone at Highclere, yours,
Caroline x
So pretty, thank you
fondly Jenny
Dear Lady Carnarvon,
We love your Monday writings and look forward to them each week. This garden is SO beautiful and I envy your choice of having to pick "right" or "left" -- either way you can't lose! We have a lovely huge old cherry tree at the start of our driveway and each year I look forward to its blossoming canopy as well as the birds wait (not so patiently!) for the sour fruit it delivers. Living in mid Wales, it appears that the blossoms on our tree are not quite as far along as yours, but I suspect your weather might have been a bit kinder the last few weeks.
Kind regards,
Margaret K ("Maggie") Mott
Dear Lady Carnarvon: You have such a wonderful way with words. I so look forward to receiving your emails every Monday. If you ever get the chance, please visit Washington, D.C. to see the beautiful cherry trees in bloom, they are pink in color and absolutely beautiful. I've been there once to see them (I only live about three hours from D.C.), but want to go back again. I believe I've missed the prime time to see them for this year. It's so much fun when a slight breeze is blowing and the beautiful blossoms go into several different directions, even in your face. Keep up the great work.
My 91 year old mother who is British. Is passing away in CT , at a nursing home .
She lived in Brighton during the war . One war story she has told me many times was, they were having a picnic on the cliffs , with her lovely white terrier. A German fighter plane was approaching. They were so afraid…,she said she saw his eyes looking down on them and that moment…..this pilot who could have showered them with bombs ….flew on leaving them safe . Humanity the act of kindness in war spared there lives .
Her name is June Howard. She loved cherry trees .
Thank you so much Susan
Love these beautiful trees! Such an amazing gift from Japan.
Lady Carnarvon,
Your pictures of the lovely Sakura trees and the early gardens causes me to think of the friendship which bloomed between Japan and its former enemies after WW II, and the solid alliance we share with that lovely ancient country now.
Thank you for the reminder, and may your trees bloom and later surrender their blossoms gracefully upon your paths.
Hoping you have a lovely Spring,
Martha
What a beautiful blog! I found it so uplifting and inspiring. Many thanks, Lady Carnarvon, for such enchanting images. It is ‘full of the joys of Spring’ and was a delight to read.
Thank you Martha. Wishing you a Happy Spring too.
Best
Hannah
Thank you for the reminder about wabi-sabi. A great philosopy put into practice in the spring as well as year-round!
Beautiful pictures! Cherry trees are so lovely. The harbinger of spring. I live outside of Washington and of course have seen those famous trees. Have you had the pleasure of visiting and seeing them?
Thank you for a wonderful post to start this week!
How wonderful it must be to live and work in such a beautiful part of God's creation.
Dear Lady Carnarvon,
Beautiful photo's, I love this time of year when the blossom trees bloom, but typically like today, why does the wind always get strong and blow all the blossom off, we've certainly had four seasons in one day today up in Yorkshire, but seeing all the plants and trees springing into new life makes us feel so much better.
Regards
Lorraine xx
While reading your blog on cherry blossoms I took a look outside to our garden where April has decided to send a thunderstorm together with hail and snow. I really hope the early blossoms on our fruit trees will live through this late winter Episode.
MY DEAR LADY CARNARVON,
WISHING YOU , YOUR HUSBAND AND YOUR STAFF, A LOVELY SPRING.
CHEERS.
VILLA ALEMÃ
RIO CLARO-SP
BRAZIL.
Lovely the pictures of loveliest of tree and cherry now did you and lord Carnarvon have a wonderful weekend and l am of Downton Abbey and highcelere castle and thank you for the email
Sending you enormous gratitude for creating a wonderful venue for a special day out. This week my dear friends from Illinois, Karen and Peggy, and local family, Lenise, Katie & Bowie, and I were privileged to visit Highclere. Three of us were able to enjoy the cherry blossom in the Secret Garden and stayed all day. It was obvious from the good-natured comments of the clean-up crew that people enjoy coming to work, even if it is to empty the bins that us visitors have filled. Seeing the organisation involved in clearing up after us brought home the fact that it is no accident that everything looks perfect first thing in the morning. We appreciate your team.
Sadly not yet.
SO MUCH BEAUTY , I LOVE THE SECRET GARDEN.
Beautiful blossoms thank you ,
How beautiful to see the swath of green framed by flowerbeds. That is so achingly lovely. And the phrase "secret garden" just makes me so happy remembering that wonderful book by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The cherry blossom trees were a generous gift from Japan and will adorn Highclere's crown of beauty for years to come.
So beautiful! Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful Spring blooming. Thank you for sharing.❤️
We're blooming here in Illinois also. Pretty days! So thankful to be able to enjoy another spring. Thank you for your lovely word pictures. And photographs!
Cherry blossoms are quite enchanting and where I used to live the blossoms sometimes were covered with soft coating of snow, making them look like they were sugared flowers in pink and white. So pretty!
Carolyn Dear, Montreal, Quebec
My idea of heaven to come is eternal spring , within clouds of cherry blossom. Thank you Lady Carnarvon for sharing today
Lady Carnarvon, the photographs are perfection. I love the Cherry Blossom trees. They are so uplifting to the soul. Many thanks to you. Cheryl.
Cherry blossoms are so enchanting! Where I used to live at times the cherry blossoms would get a light dusting of snow on the pink and white blossoms, they looked like sugared flowers. So pretty!
Carolyn Dear, Montreal
Hello, more wonderful photos, I wish you a very happy spring to your family and all your employees. Bonjour, encore de magnifiques photos, je vous souhaite un très beau printemps à votre famille et tout vos employés
Thank you!
Many thanks - it is long awaited!
So delicate!
And then the petals dust the earth..
It is a much read book!
So do I!
It is coming and going this spring!
Supposedly we might get snow next week!
It is a good practice..
The apple blossom is thinking about it all..
The dogs wander into everything
Dear Lady Carnarvon,
Your gardens are beautiful. I live in Northern Michigan in the middle of cherry farms. We plan a ride when the cherry and apple trees are blossoming ....a yearly pleasure for us..Thank you for sharing your world with us.
Jan Shifferd
Dear Lady Carnarvon,
Your description of your walk let's me close my eyes and imagine myself walking by the cherry trees which I am sure are a magnificent sight. Our Spring is slowly arriving.Hope you continue to enjoy Spring between the raindrops. Take care.
Susan
My favorite tree! I love that the cherry tree, sakura, is revered around the world. I’m currently sailing in the Mediterranean and enjoyed seeing sakura in Istanbul. With your 21 trees, in time, will make your Secret Garden look even more heavenly than it does now.
Thank you Susan.
I think we need to add to the cherry trees too!
Thank you for your kind response. My regards to you, and to Lady Carnarvon for her lovely missives each Monday.
Martha
Stacy I just read your comment. I have just bought a book and I'm thinking it's your grandmother's memories of the war.
If I'm right what an extraordinary coincidence.
If I'm wrong I apologize but so enjoyed your grandmother's story.
I live in Florida so we don't get a real uk type spring which I miss being from England. Being in Florida isn't all bad though and we have been watching the cardinals build nests and feed their babies.
Such beauty! Thank you! Reminds me of Wordsworth's poem:
"Under these fruit trees bows that shed
their snow-white flowers on my head,
with brightest sunshine round me spread of spring's unclouded weather..."
Your exquisite photos illustrate it perfectly, wouldn't you say?
Enchanted land is what I see. I live in Arizona USA and it is dry and brown in the desert. While the desert does have its beauty, the green and blooming flowers sing to my soul. I hope to visit some day. The dogs chose the correct path. Thank you for your photographs.
Lady Carnarvon,
Such a beautiful post. Thank you for sharing. We are fortunate to live just 20 miles from Holland, Michigan, where every May 1,000s of tulips
bloom. It is a spectrum of every conceivable color and tulip style. It is a welcome reminder that spring is right around the corner
Sounds amazing!
Dear Lady Carnarvon:
Thank you for this blog, for sharing the brief Japanese history of the cherry tree, and for the beautiful pictures of the blossoms. You are blessed with such wonderful gardens of arbor, floral, and fauna.
Until next time, continue enjoying your outdoor time.
Perpetua Crawford
So much beauty there. Grateful for your sharing this. Enjoy your walks as much as I enjoy your writing.