MACON — As legend has it, and as this region’s Johnny Appleseed of cherry trees attested himself, the pink Yoshino blossoms for which this city is now known first burst forth unexpectedly.
A mystery tree had taken root in the yard of real estate magnate William A. Fickling Sr. in the late 1940s.
“We didn’t know what it was called,” Fickling said in an interview years later, “but it got prettier and prettier. People kept asking us about that tree, so we began talking to nurserymen to find out more.”
It wasn’t until the early 1950s, while on a trip to Washington, D.C., that Fickling learned what it was. He noticed how the Yoshinos cherry trees in that city’s Tidal Basin looked exactly like the beauty in his yard.
The descendants of Fickling’s springtime starlet are the main attraction at what has become a rite of March here, the Cherry Blossom Festival, founded in 1982. The event, which attracts an estimated 150,000 visitors, begins its 10-day run on Friday.
Soon after Fickling figured out what the not-from-around-here flora was, folks started coming from far and wide to get their hands on the offspring of his tree.
Horticulture was Fickling’s hobby, and he began propagating Yoshinos early on. He had the patience to “fool with them,” as he put it. Until his death in 1990 at age 87, he gave away thousands.
Over the years, more than 300,000 Yoshinos are believed to have been planted on lawns, along roadsides and in parks across Bibb County.
Credit: Joe Kovac
Credit: Joe Kovac
The trees are known for being finicky. But they are also known for something else. Something that, say, makes their beloved but unlikely residency here all the more cherished: They are short-lived. (Thirty years, give or take.) Fickling once said if he had to pick just one kind of tree to raise for posterity, it probably would be an oak or maybe a magnolia.
While scores of Yoshinos still populate Macon’s landscape, as they die off, more need to be planted. And that is happening in spots. But what has also begun is a push to introduce other varieties of cherry trees, ones that might combine forces to provide pink blooms from late February through the arrival of spring. The other varieties, the hope is, will be more disease-resistant, heat-tolerant and better suited to ever-warming winters, which are affecting the timing of and, often, diminishing the abundance of eye-popping Yoshino blossoms here.
As recently as the early 2000s, the city horticulturist and others began spreading word about the need to diversify in order to prolong the pink, to ensure that the festival month is as awash in blossoms for as many weeks possible.
Fickling’s great-granddaughter, Laurie Fickling, is a landscape architect. On her family’s farm on the north side of town, there are Yoshino cherry trees and other varieties. The Helen Taft, a Yoshino-Taiwan hybrid, produces hot pink blooms. It was named for the former first lady who is credited with planting the first Yoshinos, a gift from Japan, in Washington, D.C., in 1912.
Laurie Fickling, 36, has become versed in the Yoshinos’ struggles here, their recent susceptibility to fungus and other heat-wrought woes.
She has taken on, though somewhat reluctantly, an unofficial role as one of the next generation’s ambassadors of cherry trees.
“My focus, in terms of taking on that legacy, is to make sure that we continue to have that beauty in the future,” she said. “I think we need to increase the diversity of the species and select ones that have the better disease resistance, or are happy in the reality of our climate.”
Credit: Laurie Fickling
Credit: Laurie Fickling
It is hard to ignore that winters are warming, she said, adding when it comes to the Yoshinos, “we would be smart to stay ahead of” the trend.
“This is the southernmost range of their happy range to begin with,” she said.
Yes, Yoshinos will endure here in some form for years to come. But locals must come to grips with what some may consider sacrilege — cutting the trees down when they are ailing.
Bill Fickling III lives in his grandfather’s house, where, 75 years ago, that fledgling local Yoshino first shone.
For a week or so each spring, the property there glows like a floral fairyland. Tourists and locals alike can’t help tapping the brakes as they ride by on Ingleside Avenue. The soft-colored canopy unveils itself as a pinkish white-out, as magical as suspended snowfall.
Some visitors waltz right up the Ficklings’ private drive for impromptu, self-guided tours of the grounds. The place is just that iridescent and irresistible.
The trees can be breathtaking, and that’s why Bill Fickling believes that, no matter how fussy Yoshinos are, they aren’t likely to get phased out. Not anytime soon.
“The beauty of the Yoshinos is going to be preserved,” he said. Even if it’s as a new breed, “they’re going to live on.”
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