Spring Has Sprung

If you look outside and spring does not appear to have really begun yet (the official start was March 20 this year), don't be dismayed. The infamous cherry blossoms are in bloom in Washington D.C. and that is hope for towns and cities like Worcester, Massachusetts whose forecast includes snow showers by this week's end.

The Yoshino roots run deep in the Shupe family.

Gilbert Shupe, 43, like his father before him, is the chief keeper of the city's treasured cherry trees.

Shupe knows the branches, bumps, buds and trunks of most of the 3,750 Yoshino cherry trees that encircle the Tidal Basin, as well as the oaks, elms, spruces and other varieties of cherry trees across the rest of the Mall.

He remembers following his father on his rounds around the Tidal Basin as a little boy.

"Yep. There's been a Shupe tree man on these grounds since 1965," he said one day during the height of pruning season. His eyes wandered to a branch 20 feet away. He stopped speaking to snap a small, dead finger from the branch.

The tree maintenance supervisor for the National Capital Region office of the National Park Service, or as he prefers, simply "the tree man," Shupe manages the team that trims, feeds and waters the trees.

The past few weeks have been Shupe's busiest. His team has a short time to prune the cherry trees before they burst open with their pink frills and are surrounded by admirers

To continue reading The Washington Post's The Man Behind the Blossoms, click here.

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