Phillie's Festival centerpiece is Sakura Sunday, April 11. It features a day of picnicking and performances from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Fairmont Park's Horticultural Center.

This extravaganza concludes with the Gala of the Subaru Cheery Blossom Festival on April 17 at the newly renovated Please Touch Museum. It features a saki barrel-breaking ceremony which is a Japanese tradition to mark special occasions or important events.

The Festival benefits the Japan American Society of Greater Philadelphia's Community Tree Planting Project whose mission it is to beautify the city landscape by annually planting and maintaining cherry trees throughout Philadelphia parks. The Society finished planting 1,000 trees in 2007 to compliment the 1,600 trees donated by Japan "as a gesture of friendship in 1926."

Although New York City does not have an actual festival, citizens celebrate the Japanese tradition of "Hanami" to mark the cherry blossom season from April 3 to May 4 at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Hanami is the Japanese custom of "enjoying the beauty of the flowers" -- in this case, as in Japan, that almost always refers to the cherry blossoms.

The "Cherry Watch" at the Garden tracks the gradual blooming of Garden's several hundred cherry trees. A highlight of the event, Sakura Matsuri, is scheduled for May 1 and 2 this year.

So why limit your "Cherry Watch" to the Tidal Basin? Flowering cherry trees, with their pink and white blossoms, can be found from sea to sea, on both sides of the Potomac, and throughout not only the District itself but also throughout the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area. Dr. Fairchild's originals are still there and flowering.