The pale pink blossoms are drifting to the ground now, as Freedom Park's beloved Yoshino cherry trees end their yearly exuberance.

The cherry trees -- most of them, at any rate -- are safe again. Mecklenburg County's Park and Recreation Department has worked out an agreement with arborist Patrick George of Heartwood Tree Service in which he will care for and maintain the aging cherry trees. The county's original plan was to cut down about two dozen of the park's 56 remaining Yoshino cherries after concluding they were suffering from such serious damage or so near the end of their natural 40-year lifespans that it made economic sense to remove them and plant anew.

That proposal met a storm of public sentiment even stronger than the ice and wind storms that over the past few years had assaulted the trees. People love Freedom Park, and they love those cherry trees. It's as if Charlotteans have a strain of Druidism in their bloodlines that emerges when the city's majestic trees are threatened. As park neighbor Robert FitzPatrick said, "Trees are not just commodities. They have meaning."

In this instance something remarkable happened. Some of Freedom Park's neighbors began a grass roots protest against the cherry tree removal plan. Now, it's fair to say that organized protest in Charlotte is as rare here as a California redwood forest, so the sight of neighbors rallying around their park's trees and wielding democracy as a weapon was fully as inspiring as the trees themselves were in their spring finery last week.

It worked. The Friends of Freedom Park generated enough concern to get the park department's attention and helped put Mr. George in contact with park officials. To their credit, park officials were willing to listen. In the end, the right thing happened. Mr. George says four, perhaps five, of the cherry trees are dead or so sick they need removal. The county will replace them with young cherries. The others will be spared.

Mr. George will donate to the county his company's care for the rest of the trees, which he estimates can live for years if provided with pruning and treatment appropriate to their age and situation. Neither Mr. George nor park and recreation officials are certain precisely when the trees were planted, but the park dates to the '40s and it's likely the older cherries are 40 or 50 years old.

But advanced age need not be a death sentence. The world-famous Yoshino cherry trees surrounding the Tidal Basin in Washington are more than 80, and they survive with specialized care from the National Park Service.