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The Atlanta Botanical Garden on Dec. 11 unveiled its first bilingual sign, celebrating a longstanding relationship with Japan that continues to bloom more than 50 years after the first seeds of friendship were planted.
The placard celebrates the many donations of cherry trees, known as sakura in Japanese, that have helped the country put down diplomatic roots in Georgia and around the U.S.
The Atlanta Botanical Garden for decades has maintained a planting of cherry trees along Piedmont Avenue that were donated soon after the Consulate General of Japan set up shop in Atlanta in 1974, two years before the garden’s official incorporation.
The consulate’s half-century in Atlanta has sparked a year of celebrations around the city, underscoring displays of goodwill from the Carter Center’s Peace Bell to the recent ceremony marking the 50th year of the Georgia Japanese School.
The new sign flanks the entrance to the Japanese Garden, tucked behind a wall just off the main path between Day Hall and the Fuqua Observatory and Orchid Center. It predates the establishment of the broader garden, having been installed in what was then Piedmont Park by a group of local citizens including members of the Atlanta Bonsai Society.
“This was here, and then when the Botanical Garden got deeded off, we kind of inherited this garden with it,” Amanda Bennett, vice president of horticulture and collections, told Global Atlanta during a small sign unveiling ceremony. “So this garden has been with the botanical garden literally since day one.”
Next year brings further reasons to celebrate, as Atlanta marks 20 years of sisterhood with Fukuoka, a city in southern Japan that shares its same latitude.
Members of the Fukuoka government have been traveling to Atlanta throughout 2024 to prepare the ground for a delegation of officials set to visit next year. These visits reciprocate a 2023 visit by Consul General Mio Maeda and Japan-America Society of Georgia leaders, who traveled six hours by train to Fukuoka on the back end of the annual Southeast U.S.-Japan Alliance conference in Tokyo.
Fukuoka won’t return empty-handed. They’ll send ahead azaleas (rhododendron indicum) to be planted just next to the round moon gate leading into the Japanese Garden.
“They’ll be shipping those to us momentarily,” said Ms. Bennett, who said she’d been trading emails with counterparts in Japan.
The Atlanta Botanical Garden will send magnolias back, Ms. Bennett said.
These symbols of friendship will gain even more visibility at the Japan-America Society of Georgia’s annual gala next year, which will be held at the garden as the society marks its 45th anniversary.
During the event, the society will unveil a new lantern, also donated by Fukuoka, to complement an existing one that has graced the garden for many years.
Mr. Maeda, the consul general, praised the garden and the community for cultivating strong friendships that his office continues to tend.
“We did nothing, but the foundation of this relationship is on your effort.”
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