The protector of cherry trees

Val Bourne tells the extraordinary story of the creation by a Japanese schoolteacher of a new race of flowering cherries, which is now available in this country

- Val Bourne

IN the past 20 years, a new race of Japanese flowering cherries has arrived in the West. It comes from Hokkaido in northern Japan, where winters are as cold (or colder) than they are in Britain. The trees were selected and named by a Japanese schoolteacher named Masatoshi Asari. They are now known as the Matsumae cherries.

Mr Asari was one of several custodians of a conservation collection of historic flowering cherries planted in Matsumae Park in the town of the same name in 1961. Mr Asari’s childhood was overshadowed by the Second World War and, in particular, by the horrific accounts from his older brother, who had been a volunteer at the local prisoner-of-war camp near Hakodate, Hokkaido.

The Asari family abhorred the way prisoners of war were treated and Mr Asari resolved to make amends by creating something beautiful to atone for those dark times. He began hybridising the flowering cherries in his local park from the 1960s onwards, a process that still continues. His conservation and breeding work have earned him the title of Sakuramori, protector of cherry trees, and 116 named flowering cherries of his raising are now planted in his local park.

Mr Asari’s creations might well have stayed hidden in the depths of Hokkaido but for a series of incredible coincidences. The first occurred in 1982, after the Flower Association of Japan published a Manual of Japanese Flowering Cherries, itemising all the species and cultivars grown in Japan. They included Mr Asari’s new Matsumae cherries and, after the book was translated into English, a copy was acquired by the late plantsman Graham Stuart Thomas (1909–2003).