The “pinkest party on earth” takes place March 16 through 25, 2012, in Macon, Georgia. Yes, Road Trips Gardeners, we’re talking about the annual International Cherry Blossom Festival.

Each March, Macon becomes a pink cotton-spun paradise of delight as over 300,000 Yoshino cherry trees bloom in all their glory.

It all began in 1949 with a resident’s curiosity about a flowering tree in his backyard. William A. Fickling, Sr., a local realtor, eventually found a tree that looked exactly like his during a business trip to Washington, D.C. Yes, his was the same kind — a Yoshino cherry — surrounding the Tidal Basin.

Fickling learned to propagate the Yoshinos and began freely sharing them with the community. One particular individual struck by their beauty was Carolyn Crayton — she worked with Fickling to organize a public planting of 500 cuttings in 1973. From then, things, well, blossomed. The numbers of Yoshino cherry trees in town keep growing as the Fickling Family Foundation continues to donate thousands of cherry trees to Macon-Bibb residents each year. (There are an estimated 300,000 now.)

(Photo courtesy of Cherry Blossom Festival)