Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Cherry Blossoms

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

The Japanese Cherry Blossom is a sight to behold. But how did they get to Washington D.C.?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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IHeart Radio app search One and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotopje is presented by CVS. Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and this is Short Stuff, and we're going to take a little tour, a little trip around the world, can do a little Washington, D.C., can do a little Japan.

And that's mostly it. I think everyone knows what we're talking about then, because we're talking about cherry blossoms in the Japanese cherry tree, which is does not produce actual, like, edible cherries that we know and love. It does provide a little fruit berry for animals and such. But it's not that kind of cherry tree. So just stop asking.

It's better. It is better. I mean, I like my cherries for sure. But if you've ever seen a cherry blossom tree in full bloom, it is such a sight to behold that Japan essentially created an entire cultural season. around it with its own emotions and songs and all sorts of stuff. It is really moving. If you're American or North American or you just like traveling to the United States and happen to be here in the spring and go to Washington, D.C., there's a good chance that you've seen the cherry blossoms on the tidal basin blooming. And this is about the time they're going to start. I think in

In 20206, it's predicted the whole season's from March 20th to April 12th. Yeah. But if you really want to make sure that you're there for the peak, they usually say like the last day, last couple days maybe in March is usually when they peak. Yeah, for sure. Brooklyn Botanical Garden, by the way, shout out to them. I know D.C. gets all the press here in the United States for cherry blossoms, but they do pretty good on their own. That's where I've seen them. But in Japan is where the real show is.

They've been cultivated there and really beloved since 8th century C.E. And they first started appearing in poetry and in books and in pictures and things like that. They have a word for the cherry blossom, which is Sakura. They have quite a few words for this, as it turns out, because it's Japan. And then they're flower gazing when the time rolls around where they're in bloom is called Hanami. And it's sort of a mixed bag in Japan because it's definitely, you know, spring and New beginnings. They start the new school year then. It's the start of their fiscal year. But it's also a little bittersweet because it also symbolizes like the ending of things, right? Yeah. And the reason

why is because cherry blossoms just stop all of a sudden at their peak. They don't like grow and peak and then fade. They grow and peak and that's that. They just fall off and die. So there's this idea, this concept of something dying in its prime, which is in and of itself quite bittersweet. And they have a word for that, this kind of nostalgic, bittersweet feeling that's kind of associated with cherry blossoms is not Sukashi, which means exactly what I just said. Yeah, for sure. And I was sort of laughing on the inside there because they, I got this from a lot of different sources, but this may have been someone How Stuff Works interviewed.

The last name is Malat. And this guy was like, if you're watching a Japanese movie or TV show and it's some like awesome young person that is the central character and they're walking around and you see the cherry trees blooming, like that means they're going to die

in this movie, for sure. Right. That was John Malat. He organizes the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival in D.C. every April. Yeah. So, uh, That's the, I guess, the Japanese version of what we have in the United States, which is somebody coughs into a napkin and there's blood in it. Oh, yeah, that's always a bad sign, isn't it? Yeah, you're always gone.

That never just becomes this thing that just happened and the movie moves on. That would be a fun red herring to put in a movie. Sure. I think that would be a MacGuffin. Oh, God. The emails. This is the new haiku. Oh, I forgot about haiku.

I wonder if somebody could write a haiku about what a McGuffin is or is not. It's coming. You asked for it. So you said that there's other words for cherry blossoms in Japanese. One of them is Okha, O-H-K-A. And tying in to that idea of something dying young and it's prime, that's what Japanese kamikaze pilots were called in World War II. OKA.

And that's what they're planes. They're essentially human-driven missile. planes were called Oka as well. And they had like cherry blossoms painted on the side of the plane. That's right. Symbolism all over the place. So let's take a break. We've covered some of Japan and now we're going to talk about DC right after this. You have the desire to help us to make a real difference. The college, the city, you offer the program Dependence and Sentence Mental. Acquare the competences essential for accompany and support the people confronted to safety mental and of dependence. Construise

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Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So we promised talk of Washington, D.C., the most famous purveyor, provider, rather, of cherry blossoms here in the the United States. And it all started on March 28th, 1912, when the Washington Post ran a little story with the headline, Mrs. Taft, plants a tree. And that is when Helen Nellie Taft, wife of William Howard Taft, the president, planted a couple of cherry blossom trees that were gifts from Tokyo. But the story is a little more interesting than that, right? Well, apparently the Washington Post journalist left in the middle of it. Okay. Just the plants a treat. So it's not

even a correct ineffective headline. But yes, that is just the broad stroke. That's the end result of decades of organizing and campaigning by a woman named Eliza Skidmore. She was the first board member of the, sorry, the first woman board member of the National Geographic Society. She was very well traveled. She loved to go to Japan. And so having traveled to Japan, she had been exposed to the cherry blossoms and was like, these are the greatest things ever. we should get some of these back in Washington, D.C.

And I'm sure that she thought this would be no problem whatsoever. Well, fast forward almost 30 years, and she finally gets this thing done. But it's thanks to the intervention of two other people who just also happen to be men. Yeah, for sure. I do love this quote, though. I want to read it because it just shows how enchanted she was. Potomac Park there on the river, they were reclaiming it at the time. And this was in 1885, and she wrote that basically,

like they had to plant something there in this space. And she said they might as well plant the most beautiful thing in the world, the Japanese cherry tree. Yeah. It's very sweet. But yeah, you mentioned a couple of dudes. One guy was named David Fairchild. And it's kind of cool when you look back at how all these convergent things kind of take place to make something happen. I love stories like this.

But this was a guy who was the, he worked at the USDA, which is a new thing at the time for our Department of Agriculture, is a job that I want. I don't know if they still have it, but he was a plant explorer. So he would travel all over the world looking for plants that they could cultivate in the United States. They do not still have that. Oh, man, I can't imagine anything better. They had it until like last year, I think. Yeah. Man, I wish somebody would have told me.

So David Fairchild was like, hey, these actually can work in Washington, D.C. I think he transplanted a few and showed that they could live. a skidmore found out about this and she was like, okay, I'm going to try one last time. I'm going to get in touch with this new first lady, Nellie Taft, and I'm going to say, please, for love God, hear me out about these cherry trees. Everybody thinks it's a good idea. Please let's start planting cherry trees in D.C. She got a reply two days later after she sent the letter. And Nellie Taft said, I have taken up the matter and have promised the trees. And all of a sudden, things just started looking up for Eliza Skidmore's idea.

Yeah, I mean, after 25 years, can't imagine how she felt. She got in touch with a guy named Dr. Takamini, who was a wealthy Japanese chemist, and he had been beating the cherry tree drum for New York City for a while. And she knew this. They were fellow enthusiasts. So she said, hey, Mrs. Taft said, like, she's going to try to make this thing happen. He was like, well, I'm a wealthy Japanese chemist, so I can pull some strings. why don't we make this like an official like state gift from Japan to the United States?

The great idea. So Japan said here are 2,000 cherry blossom trees. And also here's a bunch of insects and disease in them. Yeah, fortunately. They're lousy with Japanese beetles and God knows what disease that cherry trees get. Yeah. So they had to burn them. And Japan was like, did you have to like take a photograph and send it to us of all the cherry trees burning?

Yeah. So they sent them 3,000 more, and those are the ones that included the two that Mrs. Taff planted the next day after those, that second shipment of 3,020 healthy trees arrived. That's right. I guess they hedge their bets and sent the extra thousand plus 20, which is kind of funny. They line the tidal basin there in D.C. of Potomac Park, kind of right there around, was it the Jefferson Memorial, I think? Yes. Yeah. It's gorgeous.

been there. I know you may live in D.C. Right? Yes, she's been there plenty times. She was probably all over that, I bet. Oh, all over. She would roll in them. Park Rangers would be like, please you're not allowed to do that. She said, I can't help myself. Sakuta.

So yeah, that's D.C. You know, peak bloom. You can, like Josh said earlier, you never know exactly when it's going to happen. So it's kind of one of those things that can be heartbreaking if you have to book your ticket ahead of time. and you have no flexibility in your schedule.

There have been plenty of people that missed the cherry bloom in D.C. when they have gone just for that. So it's super sad when that happens. So maybe don't aim, this is my advice, maybe don't aim for peak bloom. Just try and be there at some point during that time frame. And it is something to see. You're just surrounded by blooming cherry trees. It's gorgeous.

But you can also, I mean, if you can't make it to D.C. or you made it and you missed your mark, you can plant a cherry tree. They're really beautiful. I would recommend the autumn dallas because it not only blooms in the spring, it blooms in the autumn, too. Do you have one?

No, I planted plenty of them, but I do not. We have a weeping cherry. Oh. It only blooms once a year. Is that why it's sad? Yeah. I wish I was like an autumn nowless.

Oh, man. I have not, oh, man, have I seen the D.C.? I don't know if. I've actually seen the D.C. bloom. I feel like I did one time visiting my sister years ago, but I also think I would have known it because there's so many more trees than even the ones in Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah. I've not seen the D.C. ones unless I just don't remember them, but we were in Japan around this time, but a little before it. So there were some sporadic blooming. Yeah. But the thing I do remember is that the Starbucks there had a Sakura, like coffee, latte. Oh, really? And they just made up.

at taste because obviously cherry blossoms don't have a taste, but it's one of the best tasting lattes I've ever had in my life. And of course it was, right? Can you recall a note? An E. Flat. You wiseacre. You got anything else? No, just, you know, it's not just D.C. and Japan, these things grow in temperate climates all over the world, and they're certainly planted a lot for, you know, tourism and the wow factor. So you can see them all over the place. So just, if D.C. and Japan are off the map for you. You can probably find some nearby.

Sure. I think that's it for short stuff, right? Yeah, that means we're out. Stuff you should know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts to My Heart Radio, visit the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.