A tree so nice it blossoms twice? That’s the magnificent, double-flowering Higancherry, the rare arboricultural specimen that blooms once in spring and then returns for a blossoming encore in the warm days of early autumn.
Sakura, as they lovingly call cherry blossom time in Japan, seemed a natural occasion to visit the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) in the Bronx, an urban oasis with riotous blooms in every shade of pink and white. NYBG’s web site calls out the Higan cherry, Prunus × subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’, in the park’s rock garden, but no amount of searching turned it up. Mystified, we asked a garden guide if he knew of it.He consulted his computer tablet. That’s the tree right outside the entrance to the rock garden, he told us. You can’t miss it.
In fact, since we were looking for a blossoming tree, the Higan was easy to miss. We were too late. Cherries proceed from bud to blossom in a matter of days, and the only evidence we found of bloom was a remnant of scattered white petals. The Higan cherry is also called the Edo cherry, after the ancient capital of Japan. NYBG’s specimen resembles the mother of all cherry trees, with a stout trunk and a vast canopy. Though we could see the specimen’s great stature, we had missed the seasonal explosion of flowers.
A subsequent visit in another year yielded success. The cherry had bloomed, bloomed magnificently. Lavish blossoms were practically blinding.
The Garden was mobbed, the weeping cherry was buff — over a century old and still sprouting baby leaves. (“He who does not weep does not see,” Victor Hugo.)
One of the wild species of cherry native to Japan, Edo Higan is also the name of the cultivars derived from the species. A legendary specimen is reputed to be 2,000 years old. The Higan is not always a “weeper” (Pendular), though choosing a tree that will let down its branches in a waterfall of blossoms offers a fairly irresistiblepossibility. The semi-double, 10-petal flowers range from deep pink in bud, to near-white in bloom. Lustrous dark green leaves follow.
Traditionally, the Japanese mark early spring with parties under the laden branches, a custom called “watching blossoms” that goes back thousands of years. At night, couples come to linger under the blooms, a ritual with another name, yozakura.Nine months later, if the fates be kind, Japanese maternity wards are filled with yozakura babies.
With the change of seasons, Higan comes alive a second time with a profusion of blossoms, standing out amid the autumnal foliage. Thirst for nectar drive bees to swarm the flowering branches, and birds also visit, for the bitter, pea-size black berries that ripen over the summer.
Compared to other cherries, Higan is more cold hardy, heat and stress tolerant and long lived than other cherry trees, flourishing in Zones 5-8. Fast growing, it seesheight increases of more than 24” per year, typically reaching 20-30’. The tree favors full sun and partial shade, and grows in acidic, loamy, moist, well-drained soil.
New York City’s Borough of Brooklyn can boast of its own Higan cherry street trees.
They are all so similar, yet each ravishing in an idiosyncratic way…in one case, watched over by an enormous, swarthy, fierce London plane.
In 1912, the government of Japan presented over three thousand cherry trees to Washington D.C. They have been replenished ever since. The National Cherry Blossom Festival in the District features Higan among other cherries. If you miss them in spring, you’ll have another chance come fall.
