March 16, 2026
Thom Carroll/for PhillyVoice
Philadelphia received 1,600 flowering cherry trees for the sesiquincentennial in 1926. Now, as the nation's 250th birthday approaches, it's adding 250 more.
Crowds admiring the cherry blossoms in Fairmount Park this spring might notice some freshly planted trees among the old-timers. A legion of gardeners, city staffers and volunteers have spent months moving dirt to make space for 250 flowering cherry trees ahead of the nation's semiquincentennial — and they're about to cross the finish line.
Roughly 220 trees have been planted across five locations, said Sandi Polyakov, the head gardener of the Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center. The final 30 will take their places in early April, he said, when the center's operator Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia and its partners at Parks & Recreation formally celebrate project's completion.
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"It's something that we've been going pretty hard and heavy on for a little over a year," Polyakov said. "But, you know, it's one of those things where you don't wanna blow up too much steam about it until you actually can get it done."
Their efforts have doubled the amount of flowering trees in the section of Fairmount Park where the annual cherry blossom festival is held. Visitors won't have to wait until next year to see the newcomers' blooms, either. Polyakov said cherry trees flower "even when they're very young," and expects the new trees to hit peak bloom along with the existing clusters during the final week of March, when the festival is scheduled to take place.
"They're only going to get more majestic over the next 10, 15, 20 years," Polyakov said. "That park over time is going to just become even more magical, even more photogenic."
Fairmount Park unquestionably benefitted the most from this planting blitz. The project budgeted 85 trees for the Centennial Arboretum, another 90 for the area around Centennial Lake and 25 for the Schuylkill River Trail. The remaining 50 are evenly split between Central High School in North Philly and Blankenburg Elementary School in West Philly — which, unlike the other areas, did not have existing cherry trees. Students helped plant them, and will pitch in on watering duties as they grow.
The semiquincentennial trees are latest in a line of anniversary plantings. Back in 1926, the Japanese government gifted 1,600 cherry blossom trees to Philadelphia for the sesquicentennial, the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The city hosted an international exposition for the occasion, which featured a "Japan Day" celebration with jiu-jitsu wrestlers and Japanese movie stars.
The JASGP began a 10-year planting campaign in 1998 that added another 1,000 to the city. Those account for a lot of the city's cherry blossoms, but as Polyakov notes, the trees can live anywhere from 30 to 100 years. The latest additions will serve as the next generation, bolstering areas where their elders may be dying out.
Continuing this legacy was a priority for the people behind the planting blitz. Since their splashy debut a century ago, cherry blossoms have become an anticipated sign of spring and "part of Philly culture," in Polyakov's estimation.
"They have such an iconic impact," he said. "And for some people, it's the only time that they might interact with trees that year, at least in that kind of more direct way. So any way that you can get people to be excited about trees is great. This is one of them and it's something that we're able to do."
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