You are looking through a flowering Kwanzan cherry and young saplings toward Manhattan. The Kwanzan cherry is over Central Park and the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Again, by turning around 180 degrees you will see Lady Liberty. The young trees you see in the foreground are from a Ladies Auxiliary VFW Grove of Honor tree project. The Kwanzan cherry is of Asian and Japanese origin. The tree graces urban centers like Washington D.C., New York City, Brooklyn and Vancouver, Canada. Festivals throughout North America are dedicated to the honor of the tree's bubblegum pink blossoms. The tree grows 30 feet tall and 25 feet wide.
According to Dr. Mike Durr in his book, Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs, Prunus serrulata "epitomizes to most gardeners all that is sacred about cherries. In its finest forms, the habit is vase-shaped to rounded." These trees are short lived and only expected to survive for 10 to 15 years. Viruses lead to gradual decline and death.
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