Cherry blossom lingo: a carpet of cherry blossom petals

There are so many beautiful words related to nature in the Japanese language. And cherry blossoms is no exception. In fact, there are quite a few different words used specifically for cherry blossom related phenomenons. Such as the carpet of cherry blossom petals that the trees leave as they shed their petals.

A carpet of cherry blossom petals

In Saitama Prefecture in the Kanto plain of Japan, the vast majority of cherry blossoms are now changing to green leaves. And as it is a rainy day today, its speeding up the process of the petals falling to the ground. When the petals fall to the ground in volume in a short period of time they create a beautiful scene that many refer to as a "carpet" in the English language. But, I doubt you will be surprised to hear, there are words (yes plural) in the Japanese language for this stunning sight.

The two words that I know that are used for a carpet or blanket of cherry blossom petals are "hanamushiro" and "sakura no jutan". Those two terms are used for cherry blossom petals on the ground rather than water. There is a separate expression for water. "Hanamushiro" 花筵, literally flower mat, is an older expression as far as I am aware. Hana means flower and mushiro is a straw mat.

"Sakura no jutan (juutan)", 桜の絨毯 / 桜のじゅうたん, which is more commonly used in recent years, literally means "cherry blossom carpet". Sakura as you know means cherry blossoms and juutan is the Japanese word for carpet. There maybe other regional terms too.

Have you seen any cherry blossom carpets this year?