Coming into Bloom
More than a decade after the idea was first planted, the Hanami Line might just be poised to give us all a sneak peek of its annual cherry blossom showcase. Sacramento, get ready to be pretty in pink.
Rendering courtesy of the Sacramento Tree Foundation
This spring, a troupe of newcomers to the City of Trees is set to put on what you might call a “dress rehearsal” for a colorful annual outdoor pageant. For one to two weeks over the next month or two like the weather, these sensitive performers’ exact schedule is impossible to foretell the hundred-odd freshly planted cherry blossom trees that comprise Robert T. Matsui Waterfront Park’s new Hanami Line are getting ready to stage their very first preview performance. Freshly planted as they are, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether this inaugural group bloom will be fragile and tentative, big and bold, or somewhere in between the wait-and-see is part of the fun. But whether the show debuts like a lamb or a lion, we can rest assured that it will improve year over year, so that not too far hence, this new addition to our cityscape will be reliably blossoming into a magic pink canopy of blooms shimmying in the Delta Breeze, dappling the picnickers below in a soft haze of sequins.
If you’ve never seen cherry trees in bloom, you’re in for a transformative experience. Think of it as an impromptu festival, an opportunity to practice awe and abandon oneself to a sense of wonder and joy. That’s exactly what Sacramento-based author and political consultant Joe Rodota felt back in 2012, when he visited a park in Japan and saw an artfully designed manhole cover illustrating the importance of hanami, which translates roughly as “cherry blossom viewing,” but means much more. “It showed a cherry tree in the park, and the wind is blowing the petals off, and the blooms become hearts as they leave the tree,” he remembers.
The Hanami Line’s 106 cherry blossom trees are ready for their close-up. (Courtesy of the Sacramento Tree Foundation)
Rodota had seen Washington, D.C.’s celebrated cherry trees in bloom, so he already knew what a wondrous sight it could be, but something about the way Japanese culture embraced the natural phenomenon at the soul level inspired him. “This idea that in Japan, people use this moment to gather, put blankets out and interact with each other, see their friends and be with their families, really resonated with me,” he says. “It becomes this place, as opposed to just something you go look at.”
Fired up at the prospect of introducing this kind of placemaking ot the River City, Rodota returned home and met with then Sacramento Tree Foundation executive director Ray Tretheway and his team, and proposed the idea that would eventually flower into the Hanami Line more than a decade later (trees require us humans to be patient, another thing to love about them). Around the same time, he’d just begun talking to a fellow political operative, Lon Hatamiya, who had been the secretary of the state’s Technology, Trade and Commerce and the chair of the California Travel and Tourism Commission under Gov. Gray Davis. When Arnold Schwarzenegger bested Davis in the 2003 recall election, Rodota was the director of policy of Schwarzenegger’s campaign, so these two had been—perhaps even literally—across the aisle. But the Hanami project inspired a meeting of the minds between the two friends and colleagues.
Joe Rodota (left) and Lon Hatamiya, who spearheaded the Hanami Line project, stand in front of a cherry blossom tree sculpture at the Robert T. Matsui Waterfront Park in January. (Portrait by Andri Tambunan)
Hatamiya recalls the moment Rodota first mentioned his idea for introducing cherry trees to Sacramento. “It took me about 30 seconds to say, ‘I’m on board. Let’s do this,’ ” he says. Hatamiya’s Japanese ancestors had been farming in the Sacramento Valley for more than 100 years. Japanese farmers started arriving here in the late 1800s, and are responsible for our status as a premier rice-growing zone. “I thought of [the Hanami project] as not only an opportunity to honor their legacy and their contributions to the region, but also the connection between California and Japan,” he adds, pointing out that Japan is one of California’s leading trade partners.
The two political insiders formed a committee, with the assistance of the Tree Foundation, and the planning and fundraising began. “We never thought it would explode the way it did,” Hatamiya says. “What a dream come true.”
By September 2014, a site was selected. Matsui Park was a no-brainer, with its position along the waterfront between Old Sacramento and the future Railyards development. It is also, Rodota acknowledges, close to the freeway. “One of the things I love about Japan is that it is packed with people, you’re in the middle of a jumble of incredible metropolitan activity, and yet they have carved out places where you can pause and enjoy nature,” he says. “It is very Japanese to take a place and create silence near noise. This is a very challenging spot, but it’s turning into this oasis.”
The new Hanami Line knits this corner of the city into a cozy quilt, elevating its profile at the same time. It’s no accident that the Hanami Line can be seen from I-5—the freeway which was part of an era of downtown redevelopment that included the demolition of Sacramento’s historic Japantown—drawing the eye and maybe breathing some calm into harried drivers.
The National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., attracts over 1.5 million visitors each spring. (Photo by Zack Frank/Shutterstock)
“We wanted a site that could be iconic, one that is big and dramatic enough that eventually when the trees bloom, everybody knows it and it becomes a news event and is covered locally, but also spreads,” Rodota says. “People, if they’re in Washington, D.C., when the cherry blossoms bloom, they consider it a home run. We want to create that along the Sacramento River over time. This should be a destination.”
In the meantime, the journey is the destination. Construction delays and weather-related issues pushed back the tree planting in 2024, postponing the opening of the Hanami Line from last spring to last summer. And while there are never any guarantees with Mother Nature and it will take a few years to predict blossom patterns, today the budding park is finally primed for its first full season in bloom, starting potentially in late March. An artful, wave-patterned walkway, the Matsuyama Dori, points toward Sacramento’s Japanese sister city; Matsuyama, the birthplace of haiku, and ends at a magnificent, dichroic glass sculpture of a cherry blossom tree sending out year-round hanami vibes. The 106 trees have been planted mainly in four groves, between parasol-like shade structures. Lawns invite picnicking, while benches carved from felled trees via the Tree Foundation’s Urban Wood Rescue program are ready for contemplative visitors.
The site plan for the Hanami Line by architecture firm Jacobs (Image by Jacobs, courtesy of the Sacramento Tree Foundation)
Programming for the 1.5-acre Hanami Line will include a community picnic with yoga and meditation classes hosted by the River District on April 26, and a guided tree walk given by the Tree Foundation sometime this spring to explain the science, magic and wonder of it all. Future blooms may see farm-to-fork tie-ins with local Japanese restaurants like Kru and Binchoyaki, as well as family-friendly events by the neighboring SMUD Museum of Science and Curiosity (MOSAC).
“Our vision is once a year, the city will ceremonially rename itself Sakura-mento,” Rodota says. “Sakura” just happens to be the Japanese word for cherry blossoms, yet one more way in which the city’s newest trees are a perfect match. It seems only fitting for that moniker to stick as an emblem of the city’s vaunted diversity.
