Japan’s Princess Kako Helps Plant Cherry Blossom Tree

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:50 JST, March 17, 2023

MITO — Princess Kako, the second daughter of Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko, visited the Kairakuen garden in Mito to attend a cherry blossom tree planting ceremony on Thursday.

The sapling is from a tree referred to as “Sakon-no-sakura” (Left cherry blossom tree), which grew in front of the Shishinden hall of the Kyoto Imperial Palace.

In the late Edo period (1603-1868), Emperor Ninko gave a sapling of the tree to Tokugawa Nariaki, the ninth feudal lord of the Mito domain, when Prince Arisugawa’s daughter married into the Mito family.

In 1963, another sapling of the tree was presented to the Kairakuen garden by the Imperial Household Agency, but it was felled by Typhoon No. 15 in 2019. The ceremony was held to have the cherry tree back in the garden.

At the ceremony, Princess Kako placed soil around the 2.5-meter-tall sapling.