Workers cut down Stumpy in the spring. People loved the gnarled, funny-looking cherry tree. Now employees at the National Arboretum tend clippings of the famous plant. 

Stumpy and hundreds of other cherry trees grew around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. Workers needed to fix the seawall around the basin. That meant chopping down many trees.

Earlier this year, horticulturalists (plant specialists) collected clippings from Stumpy. They took them to the Arboretum.

They replanted and cared for those clippings. Now there are five small saplings at the Arboretum. Planting the clippings was a delicate job. There were no guarantees that it would actually work, says horticulturalist Piper Zettel. Stumpy was not a healthy tree. But so far, the baby plants are doing well.

The original Stumpy is called the “parent plant.” However, the saplings are more like Stumpy’s clones than its offspring. They have the same genes as the original plant. (Read more about genes here.)

The “Stumplings” could return to the Tidal Basin in the next couple of years. “The process takes a long time, as trees grow very slowly,” Ms. Zettel says. “We need to be patient.”

Meanwhile, the seawall repair project kicked off on Thursday. Officials painted one of the 90-foot-tall metal piles gold. (A pile or piling is a post that supports a load.) The project will use more than 700 piles. 

People gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony. A giant crane pushed the golden post into the ground. Watchers clapped.

The seawall repair project should finish in spring 2026. Officials think more tourists than usual will visit that summer. That’s because it is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. — Job 14:7