Ume blossom - Spring Comes to Japan: The Arrival of the Ume Blossom Festival

SPRING COMES TO JAPAN: The arrival of ume blossoms and the Ume Blossom Festival

Our Northern Hemisphere winter hasn’t been gentle, but rather, one of unremitting extremes—fierce winds, atmospheric rivers, flooding and towers of snow. Too often, in its wake, loss and hardship. We cannot stare down human-caused climate change; yet, spring will arrive, and when it does, it will suddenly erupt in a panoply of dazzling blossom.

In Japan, the first spring festival is all about the Plum Blossom (known as ume). It doesn’t get the international attention of the cherry blossom (sakura), but both ume and sakura have been loved in Japan from ancient times. These spring blossom festivals have a close connection with Japanese cuisine, art and craftwork.

Ume is one of my favorite festivals. Let me take you there.

More about the Ume plum


The Japanese ume plum is sometimes referred to as an apricot, but let’s call it a plum, according to the longtime tradition. The Japanese plum tree is the first to bloom. Ume blooms in February, ahead of sakura by a month. The flowering period is short: It begins in mid-February and early March, lasting a little more than a week.

Thus, spring comes to Japan with the blossoming of ume. Its flowers—fragile, exquisite in form, with a delicate aroma—are surprisingly tender and defenseless, although these flowers do not die, even in icy, frosty weather. Plum flowers stick to the branches, and the petals are round, one of the key distinctions between cherry and plum. Each plum bud produces only one blossom, unlike the sakura, which blooms like a bouquet. The leaves of a plum tree are a darker colour, sometimes even reddish-purple.

Ume blossoms can be accompanied by rain and strong winds, and sometimes snow. That doesn’t interfere with the holiday, as people with their umbrellas and cameras still head off to public parks, temples and shrines, despite the cold. Some even bring along a pet, costumed in an ume theme. Especially appropriate on such blustery days is Umeshu, a sweet low-alcohol drink infused with plums. It warms you up on days when spring is woven with winter.

Ume is more than just a plum


Ume blossom - Spring Comes to Japan: The Arrival of the Ume Blossom Festival

Ume is more than a plum. It carries the cosmic significance of rebirth and the continuity of nature. Ume is a symbol of spring triumphing over winter, virtue and courage overcoming difficulties, and, of course, happiness. Like sakura, the plum blossom’s ephemeral nature reminds us of life’s transient beauty, and to walk among ume engenders reflection and serenity.

Plums were brought to Japan from China more than 1,000 years ago, along with Buddhism. Initially, the ume plum was mainly planted in the courtyards of Buddhist temples and palace parks, but over the centuries, unique Japanese varieties of ume have been bred.

Most often, this hasn’t affected the taste and abundance of fruits, but the appearance of the tree. There are “weeping” ume, while other varieties differ in the number of petals in the inflorescences (variants with double flowers are popular); they also vary in their shades from white to dark pink, and finally, in aroma—sometimes strong, and sometimes imperceptibly weak.

One of the best places to view ume is the Kairakuen Gardens in the Tochigi prefecture. Built around 1842, Kairakuen is one of the three most famous gardens in Japan. Its Ume Blossom Festival is a world highlight event. Another excellent place to view both dark pink and white plum trees, blooming one after another, is the Tsukigase Plum Grove in the Nara Prefecture. About 13,000 plum trees are grown on this vast site. It’s said that plum trees were first planted there in about 1205.

Darting among the plum branches during ume’s blossoming, I once spotted a warbling white-eye—a small yellow-olive bird with a prominent white eye ring. It’s native to Asia and feeds on fruit, insects and nectar, frequently travelling in vocal and active flocks. It moves in a swift, bouncing flight, so you have to watch carefully to get a good view. Well worth finding!

Ume and haiku


Ume engenders many haiku poems, and this one, written by an anonymous female poet in the 17th century, spirits me back to enchanted moments with the ume blossom:

plum branches—
umbrellas taking shape
in the rain

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image: Toshihiro Gamo

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