A hundred years ago this week, on April 27, 1926, an Edwardian Englishman gave a speech in Tokyo to an elite group of business and government leaders that would help change the face of spring around the world.

The man, Collingwood “Cherry” Ingram, warned 150 members of the prestigious Cherry Association that Japan’s diverse cherry trees were "in serious danger of extinction" because of neglect and the dominance of one variety, the Somei-Yoshino tree.

He told the stunned audience that two beautiful cherry tree varieties were growing in his garden in the county of Kent that were apparently extinct in Japan. One was a variety now known as Taihaku, or the great white cherry tree. Ingram promised to try to return those varieties to Japan and to spread his cherry tree creations far and wide, which he did.

On his spring 1926 trip, Ingram also witnessed the progressive militarization of Japan, which would eventually lead to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and to the U.S.’ entry into World War II.

Ingram had become Britain’s foremost cherry expert in the 1920s after returning from northern France at the end of World War I. There, he saw the wholesale destruction of nature and the senseless deaths of thousands of soldiers in brutal trench warfare.

“The ravages of war have laid the countryside to waste and now the rolling hills are nothing more than a treeless and lifeless expanse of rank weeds, shell-holes, trenches and graves,” he wrote. “It seems to me that war is merely the legitimization of murder and the sanctioning of all the more brutal instincts of mankind.”

On his return to England, Ingram bought a house in a village called Benenden, where a magnificent 25-foot cherry tree that bore silky pink blossoms was growing. The beauty of this variety, which he called Hokusai after the Japanese woodblock painter, prompted Ingram to become a full-time cherry specialist. A century later, he is credited with introducing, creating and distributing diverse ornamental cherry trees throughout the United Kingdom and other parts of the world.

To Ingram, the charm and serenity of cherry blossoms was an antidote to the horrors of war. Incredibly, more than 5,000 miles away from Benenden on the southern tip of Hokkaido, another self-trained cherry tree creator shared Ingram’s obsession with sakura and his hatred of war. And like Ingram, he was also determined to spread his cherry tree creations around the planet and to use them to heal war’s divisions.

That Hokkaido plantsman and schoolteacher, Masatoshi Asari, now 95, knew about Ingram and his passion, but the two men never met. Ingram died in 1981, aged 100. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Asari sent thousands of the 116 cherry tree varieties that he had created, known collectively as Matsumae cherries, outside Japan. Most went to countries that Japan had invaded during World War II or whose people had suffered and died during the conflict. They included China, North Korea, South Korea, England and Poland.

"The cherries were all symbols of peace," Asari told me. "If they bloomed in places where people had been tormented because of aggression, I felt that I was fulfilling my responsibilities."

A century on from Ingram’s defining trip to Japan and half a century since Asari began his cherry diplomacy, a new "peace offering" is gaining momentum in the U.K. and Japan. A Japanese-British group, of which I am a part, plans to take Asari and Ingram’s trees to another war-stricken country — Ukraine.

The cherry saplings are already growing at Kalmthout Arboretum in Belgium, which boasts scores of trees created by both men. Thirty trees will be planted next spring at Kremenets Arboretum in western Ukraine, and 100 more trees will become a cherry tree avenue in the city of Kremenets in 2028.

According to the government in Kyiv, over 50,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been killed and more than 10 times that number have been wounded since the Russian invasion in February 2022. Hundreds of thousands of families have lost loved ones or are taking care of soldiers who’ve lost limbs or have been scarred psychologically or physically.

The offspring of Asari’s cherry trees, originating in Japan but grafted in England, will offer succor and support to widows, parents, children and friends of the bereaved and injured. Besides delivering and planting the trees, our convoy will also take medical supplies as well as prosthetic limbs for Ukrainian amputee veterans.

Nicholas Mellor, who is leading that part of the project, has organized numerous humanitarian aid ventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza and Ukraine over the past 40 years. "Perhaps surprisingly, grafting a cherry scion onto a rootstock and fitting a prosthetic arm or leg onto an amputee have a lot in common," he said. "They require skill, patience and the belief that new life and hope can emerge from a dead limb."

Mellor aims to train Ukrainian amputee veterans as prosthetists and health workers using a model developed in Afghanistan, where hundreds of amputees now work independently to fit new limbs onto their fellow citizens.

"The cherry trees planted next year should bloom for generations to come, offering comfort to thousands of people," Mellor said. "Likewise, the amputee prosthetists will find purpose in their new jobs and they’ll offer hope to the men who have fought for Ukraine’s freedom the past four years."

A century ago, "Cherry" Ingram’s disappointment with Japan’s path toward singularity and uniformity was matched by his determination to save the various cherry trees. His care brought many varieties back from the brink of extinction. I hope that Asari’s similar ideals — beauty over brutality and dedication over destruction — will help to play a small but meaningful role toward a lasting peace in Ukraine.

"Our message is that spring will come again," Mellor said. "Mr. Asari is 95 and Ukraine is his last peace initiative. Everyone should applaud his resolve to use sakura diplomacy to salve war’s wounds."

© The Japan Times