The Cherry Blossom festival is this weekend in Brooklyn at the Botanical Garden. I recently learned that the Japanese garden in Brooklyn is one of the oldest outside of Japan. It was constructed in the early 1900s and created by Japanese landscape designer Takeo Shiota. According the the Brooklyn Botanical Garden website, Shiota came to America in 1907, driven by an ambition to create, in his words, “a garden more beautiful than all others in the world.” Japanese culture will be in full bloom this weekend in Brooklyn. It sure is a beautiful place to spend a day.