Скачать или смотреть A Mother's Gift: The Weeping Cherry Tree of Portland Japanese Garden

In Portland Japanese Garden there stands one tree rooted in the significance of both what it means to be Asian in America and the strength of a mother’s love: its weeping cherry. The story of this tree in the Flat Garden is especially appropriate to tell as May approaches, when we celebrate both Mother’s Day and Asian American Native Hawai’ian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month.

Like so many of Portland Japanese Garden’s most revered trees, the weeping cherry lived elsewhere before it arrived here in the early 1960s. Planted in the front yard of a Portland home, a mid-century street widening project necessitated the tree’s removal lest it be destroyed or damaged in favor of asphalt and concrete. Simultaneous to this infrastructure work was a request broadcasted out by the Garden for donations of plant life.

Tana Marumoto would be among several that answered the call. More than 60 years later, we spoke with her son, Kerry Marumoto. He was around ten years old at the time his mom made this generous gesture.

Read more: https://japanesegarden.org/2025/04/01...