blossom

They lovingly renovated the house, painting cherry blossom and doves - symbols of love and well-being - in their bedroom.

It includes recipes for meyer lemon and bay leaf gelato, jasmine-scented almond milk mousse and fruit pudding made from white melon and orange blossom.

And those structures stand to potentially blossom under a proposed $24.6 billion megamerger between Kroger and Albertsons, America’s two largest supermarket brands, that the Federal Trade Commission is suing to block over concerns the deal would create a monopoly.

The renovation, which consisted of tearing up cherry blossom and crabapple trees and replacing historic rose varietals with more muted strains in a dramatic re-work, drew intense scrutiny from historians and gardening enthusiasts for its destruction of the historically significant and iconic botanical display.

The first delegation, led by Shigeyuki Hiroki, the Japanese ambassador in New York, began by offering to plant 500 cherry blossom trees, donate books to the local library and start up an exchange program with Japan.