For barely a week of magnificently blossoming cherry trees, we get weeks and weeks of mess afterwards. First there are the petals. Then the husks and stalks of the blossoms themselves. It literally takes weeks for the trees to shed them all. On the stairs they don’t matter so much, but the trees also shed this chaff on the deck and the furniture there. Every time I go out to sit on the deck, I keep having to brush the chair seat first. (And next we’ll have the green failed berries falling – and then of course the fallen cherries themselves.)

Still totally worth it, though. And better than pine needles.