Spring Will Come Again
We’ll eventually have to say goodbye to the current famous cherries of Eliot Circle, but, just as spring is sure to return, so too will a new batch of blossoming trees.
Each winter, a heavy, pervasive gloom hangs over Portland.
Dark clouds enshroud the city. Rain splatters streets and sidewalks. The sun takes its sweet time rising, but seems in a great rush to set.
Reed knows these months of overcast well, but its longtime inhabitants also know that soon, the clouds will part, the rain will let up, the light will return, and, perhaps most exciting, the cherry blossom trees adorning campus will bloom once again. After months of waiting, spring will indeed come.
The cherry blossoms have long been a marker of the season’s turn from the cold and dark to the warm and vibrant. In Eliot Circle, a hallmark of campus, the blossoming of the ornamental cherries is celebrated each spring with revelry.
"I loved taking classes in Eliot in the spring," recalled Karen Leibowitz '99 in a 2006 Reed Magazine article, "because the view from the east end of the third floor looked out onto the cherry blossoms. It wasn't good for my concentration, but it helped compensate for the long winter."
Though varying cherry trees live all over campus, the ones in Eliot Circle have become a Reed landmark. It was long rumored that the planting of these cherry trees was connected to a student thesis. As romantic as this idea sounds, it seems to be only a myth. Rather, the cherries were planted in the 1980s as part of renovations to the middle of campus, which transformed a large parking lot into Vollum, paths, and new landscaping.
In the case of the Eliot Circle trees, cultivars from Japanese flowering cherries—many of which originated in Japan many years ago—were grafted onto prunus avium, or wild cherry, stock.
The trees, now around 40 years old, have surpassed the typical lifespan of their species. One of the trees near the Vollum entrance had to be removed in early January because of its age and proximity to a heavily used walkway, and Facilities is developing a plan to eventually replace all of the Eliot Circle cherry blossoms.
“More details on this will follow as we work through a planting plan to begin fostering new cherry trees in the circle to begin filling in for loss of mature trees,” Executive Director of Facilities Operations Steve Yeadon said in a January email.
Cherry blossom trees have long existed elsewhere at Reed, too—in total, over 70 decorate other spaces on campus. The Magic Grove, a pod of cherry trees on the Great Lawn, was planted by early professors of the college and can be found along the edge of the path leading to Eliot Hall. More cherries grace the quad of Gray Campus Center, and some live near the Reed Research Reactor. There are a couple odd ones by German House, Cerf Amphitheatre, and the Reed College Apartments. Almost anywhere you wander on the Reed campus, you can find a pink cloud of blossoms in the spring.
So even when the Eliot Circular trees are being replaced, Reedies can still expect to find groves of blooming cherry trees on campus, welcoming the return of light and warmth. The cherry blossom trees will come down, but they will be replanted—just as the gloomy Oregon winter will hang over campus, but each year we know: spring will come again.
Tags: Campus Life