The effort to bring cherry blossom trees to Washington, D.C., preceded the official planting by several decades. In 1885, Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore returned from her first trip to Japan and approached the U.S. Army Superintendent of the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds with the idea of planting cherry trees along the reclaimed waterfront of the Potomac River. Scidmore, who would go on to become the first female board member of the National Geographic Society, was rebuffed, though she would continue proposing the idea to every Superintendent for the next 24 years. Several cherry trees were brought to the region by individuals in this period, including one that was the location of a 1905 cherry blossom viewing and tea party hosted by Scidmore in northwest D.C. Among the guests was prominent botanist David Fairchild and his fiancée Marian, the daughter of inventor Alexander Graham Bell.

In 1906, David Fairchild imported 1000 cherry trees from the Yokohama Nursery Company in Japan and planted them on his own property in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The Fairchilds were pleased with the results of their planting and in 1907 began promoting Japanese flowering cherry trees as an ideal tree to plant around avenues in the Washington area. On September 26, with the help of the Fairchilds' friends, the Chevy Chase Land Company ordered 300 Oriental cherry trees for the Chevy Chase area. In 1908, Fairchild donated cherry saplings to every D.C. school to plant on its school grounds in observance of Arbor Day. At an Arbor Day speech that Eliza Scidmore attended, Fairchild proposed that the "Speedway" (a now non-existing route around the D.C. Tidal Basin) be turned into a "Field of Cherries".

In 1909, Scidmore decided to raise the money to buy cherry trees and donate them to the District. As a matter largely of form, on April 5 she wrote a letter to First Lady Helen Herron Taft, wife of newly elected President Taft, informing her of her plans. Two days later, the First Lady responded:

Thank you very much for your suggestion about the cherry trees. I have taken the matter up and am promised the trees, but I thought perhaps it would be best to make an avenue of them, extending down to the turn in the road, as the other part is still too rough to do any planting. Of course, they could not reflect in the water, but the effect would be very lovely of the long avenue. Let me know what you think about this.

By chance, Jōkichi Takamine, the Japanese chemist who discovered adrenaline, was in Washington with Mr. Kokichi Midzuno, the Japanese consul to New York City, on April 8. Informed of a plan to plant Japanese cherry trees along the Speedway (Ohio Avenue), Takamine asked if Mrs. Taft woul…

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The National Cherry Blossom Festival is coordinated by the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization consisting of representatives of business, civic, and governmental organizations. More than 700,000 people visit Washington each year to admire the blossoming cherry trees that herald the beginning of spring in the nation's capital.

The three-week festival begins around the middle of March with a Family Day at the National Building Museum and an official opening ceremony in the Warner Theatre. The Pink Tie Party is also held, at which attendees are invited to don their finest pink attire to revel together and toast the spring season. An array of activities and cultural events takes place on the following days. The Blossom Kite Festival (formerly the Smithsonian Kite Festival) usually takes place during the festival's first or second weekend. Every day there is a sushi/sake celebration, classes about cherry blossoms, and a bike tour of the Tidal Basin. Other events include art exhibits (photography, sculpture, animation), cultural performances, rakugo, kimono fashion shows, dance, singing, martial arts, merchant-sponsored events, and a rugby union tournament.

The next Saturday, a three-stage festival takes place on the Southwest Waterfront. When the festival ends, a fireworks show begins on the nearby Washington Channel. The next morning (Sunday), the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run begins on the grounds of the Washington Monument. Later that Sunday, dignitaries gather at the Tidal Basin to participate in a ceremonial lighting of the 360-year-old Japanese stone lantern.

During the morning of the festival's last Saturday, the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade travels along Constitution Avenue from 7th to 17th Streets, NW. For 16 years until 2015, the Sakura Matsuri-Japanese Street Festival (Japanese: さくらまつり), the largest Japanese Cultural Festival in the United States, took place throughout the day along 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, near the route of the parade. However, the 2016 Street Festival will take place at M Street SE and New Jersey Avenue SE, near the Department of Transportation exit of the Navy Yard-Ballpark Metro station in the distant Capitol Riverfront area. The Street Festival's relocation became necessary when the Trump Organization, which operates the Trump International Hotel in the Old Post Office Pavilion at 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, negotiated a deal with the Government of the District of Columbia that requires a 20 feet (6 m)-wide lane on Pennsylvania Avenue to remain open to the hotel's customers and valet parking service except during major events such as presidential inaugural parades, thus leaving insufficient space on the Avenue for the festival's activities.

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Of the initial gift of 12 varieties of 3,020 trees, The Yoshino Cherry (70% of total) and Kwanzan Cherry (13% of total) now dominate.

The first 12 cultivars presented were 'Yoshino', 'Kwanzan', 'Ichiyo', 'Taki-nioi', 'Shirayuki', 'Fugenzo', 'Ariake', 'Jo-nioi', 'Fukurokuju', 'Surugadai-nioi', 'Gyoiko', and 'Mikuruma-gaeshi'. With the exception of 'Yoshino', these 11 cultivars belong to the Sato-zakura group, a complex interspecific hybrid derived from the Oshima cherry. Many cultivars other than 'Yoshino' and 'Kwanzan' are not currently available for viewing because the government didn't obtained them after the original trees reached their maximum age.

The Yoshino produces single white blossoms that create an effect of white clouds around the Tidal Basin and north onto the grounds of the Washington Monument. Intermingled with the Yoshino are a small number of Akebono cherry trees, which bloom at the same time as the Yoshino and produce single, pale-pink blossoms.

The Kwanzan grows primarily in East Potomac Park and comes into bloom two weeks after the Yoshino. It produces clusters of clear pink double blossoms. East Potomac Park also has Fugenzo, which produces rosy pink double blossoms, and Shirofugen, which produces white double blossoms that age to pink.

Interspersed among all the trees are the Weeping Cherry, which produces a variety of single and double blossoms of colors ranging from dark pink to white about a week before the Yoshino. Other cultivars and species that can be found are the Autumn Cherry (semi-double, pink), Sargent Cherry (single, deep pink), Usuzumi (white-grey), and Takesimensis (good in wet areas).