Cherrygate: Did the NFL follow through on a promise to donate 200 cherry blossom trees to Nashville?

Three years ago, the NFL sparked a firestorm over the removal of cherry blossom trees along Nashville’s riverfront. The city was hosting the NFL Draft, and some of the trees were in the way of a stage they planned to build.

Andrew Bell, executive director of the Nashville Tree Foundation, remembers the outrage over what some referred to at the time as “cherrygate.”

“That situation was something that the public had galvanized around,” he said. “It really was a metaphor, I think, for a larger problem — of the loss of trees in Nashville.”

At the time, the NFL committed to not only transplanting some of the trees, but donating more.

And, yes, the NFL did follow through on its promise. They gave $26,000 to relocate about 10 of the trees on Lower Broadway where the stage was built, and gave an additional 200 trees to plant across the city.

Metro Parks handled most of the plantings with some assistance from partner organizations like Bell’s. You can see them all over, including Centennial Park, Riverside Drive, Sevier Park on 12th South, Fisk Park in North Nashville, and “a number of other places in Davidson County,” said Bell.

Evidence of the tree’s ardent following was most visible this weekend at the Nashville Cherry Blossom Festival, where hundreds of people flocked to celebrate Japanese culture, food and the emergent blossoms. 

Julia Ritchey WPLN News

Japanese rock band Kazha performs at the Nashville Cherry Blossom Festival on April 9.

The Nashville Tree Foundation was also there, giving away, appropriately, cherry blossom trees.

“They were all gone within the first hour,” said Bell.    

He says it goes to show that trees, like people, are an important part of the community.

“People love cherry trees,” he said. “They’re one of the first trees to flower in the spring, and they’re beautiful. I think it just gives us all a good feeling that winter is coming to an end and spring is arriving.”