National Cherry Blossom Festival cancellations mean less available funding for maintaining trees

With most of the National Cherry Blossom Festival’s events postponed or cancelled due to the coronavirus, officials fear a lack of visitors — and their dollars — will mean less money for the fund that helps maintain the cherry trees, endangering their future.

Catherine Townsend, president of the Trust for the National Mall said that during the three-week festival 1.5 million people usually “come down [to the Tidal Basin], take a look at the cherry blossoms, stomp on the roots, take their pictures, and we are asking them to give back.”

The Trust for the National Mall, a private group that partners with the National Park Service, has created an endowment dedicated to the care of the cherry blossom trees. Currently, the endowment contains about $300,000, but officials cannot use 1% of the endowment’s interest for maintenance until its principal reaches $500,000.

Ms. Townsend noted that the National Park Service yearly budget of about $3 billion is used for more than 400 sites around the country and that the agency has a maintenance backlog totaling about $12 billion. Trees often take a lower priority, which is why the trust is so important, she said.

Originally scheduled to run from Friday through April 12, the annual celebration this year has seen some of its biggest attractions such as the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade and the Blossom Kite Festival cancelled. Other events such as the Anacostia River Festival and the Pink Tie Party have been postponed for later this year.

Elected leaders have called for limits on large gatherings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The cherry blossoms are expected to reach peak bloom Friday, but the area around the Tidal Basin on Tuesday resembled a “ghost town,” said Matthew Morrison, chief arborist for the Mall.

Mr. Morrison said that with more funds his team could do more proactive pruning to help shape the trees instead of just reactionary pruning, cutting away dead or damaged limbs.

He said that his team for the first time is putting wood chips on top of tree roots to insulate them, aerate the soil and protect the roots from visitors’ shoes.

Placing the wood chips, though, requires upkeep and lots of hands, wheelbarrows and pitchforks when you don’t have the resources an endowment can offer, he added.

“It’s an incredible strain on our financial resources,” Mr. Morrison said. “With an endowment we would be able to get tractors with flotation tires that would travel around the ground with limited amount of pressure [on the roots], it would let us move the wood chips around freely.”

About 100 trees are replaced every year, which costs about $600 per tree, he said. With more consistent maintenance, Mr. Morrison said he believes they could live longer than their 50- to 100-year lifespan on the Mall.

Ms. Townsend said the trust is turning to online efforts to try to reach their goal of getting every tree endowed, which costs $1,000 per tree.

In a matter of days, they will have up and running a “Blossom Cam” to monitor the peak bloom, which Mr. Morrison expects to last for two weeks, weather permitting.

On Tuesday, a few visitors have stopped by the Tidal Basin to get a peak at the pink flowers. Paige Riggleman, 16; Maryam Fenaoui, 17; and Elly Gorham, 16, used their time off from Hayfield Secondary School in Alexandria to look at the blossoms.

“It’s like a completely different perspective because I have come here my whole life, and it’s always been crowded but now there’s nobody here so it’s just weird,” Maryam said.

Janette Andrews, 65, had planned her trip to the District from Chicago to help her daughter move out of her home in Fairfax County.

“Beyond my expectations, the one thing that I noticed is I want to post and share pictures but it dwarfs on a picture compared to what it actually does look like,” said Ms. Andrews, who had never seen them in person before. “So I am just taking it all in, blue skies, sun, the colors, it brought me to tears when I entered the space.”

In 1912, Tokyo gifted 3,000 cherry blossom trees to the U.S. as a symbol of friendship, and the annual festival celebrates ties between Japan and the United States.