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Strolling under the cherry blossoms arching out over Kenwood neighborhood streets in Bethesda on Saturday afternoon, Nadia Green's thoughts drifted to another kind of promenade.

"I'd like to have a wedding in them," said Green, 11, an Arlington, Va. resident. Fortunately for her the happy day is far off, because her mother, Barbara Porter, and two other friends mistook "Kenwood" for "Kensington" and arrived a few hours later than they expected.

Thousands of visitors like Green will visit the blossoming cherry trees in the 240-home neighborhood, often to enjoy a different kind of cherry blossom experience from that on display at the Tidal Basin in downtown Washington, D.C., and to escape the throng of tourists there.

Kenwood boasts about 1,200 of the Japanese Yoshino cherry trees, which reach the peak of their bloom in the first week in April and were planted in the 1920s before the first home in Kenwood was built. In Japan, where the trees are called sakura, the blossoms represent the transience of human existence.

Nick and Stacey Diehl of Silver Spring went to the Tidal Basin first, but said they were glad they made the second leg of the local cherry blossom tour to Kenwood, which by one estimate gets 25,000 to 30,000 visitors over the first two weekends in April to enjoy the blossoms.

"This is better," said Nick Diehl. "It's a little bit more peaceful."

Some of that can be attributed to local residents, who were determined four years ago to make cherry blossom viewing both more serene and safer for everyone involved.

Dennis Potts, a member of the traffic committee with the Kenwood Citizens Association, said the parking restrictions on the major arteries in the neighborhood, such as Dorset Avenue, have eliminated the four lines of both parked and moving vehicles that used to plague the neighborhood at this time of year. The county police patrol on bicycles and on foot from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., coordinating with Kenwood neighbors, while the residents put out the bright yellow "no parking" signs themselves.

Potts said the restrictions still leave plenty of parking in parts of Kenwood further away from River Road and Little Falls Parkway.

"We want to avoid a major accident," Potts said. "We have no choice but to do this."

One tradition that has sprung up alongside the cherry trees is the spate of tables loaded with drinks and baked treats along the streets, with Kenwood's younger residents pitching their goods.

Town of Somerset resident Jay Jadeja, 12, and three of his friends set up their lemonade stand at the intersection of Dorset Avenue and the Capital Crescent Trail, near a major ingress and egress of Kenwood at Little Falls Parkway. After about two hours, they had sold about $40 of lemonade, which they proclaimed a good haul.

Asked if they still liked to climb the cherry trees, however, which some residents have said should be prohibited, Jadeja and his friends answered only with bashful smiles.

Further west on Dorset Avenue, young Gwen Lefkowitz was perched alertly in her chair behind a table of $1 lemonade and two-for-a-dollar chocolate chip cookies. At about 11 a.m. she said sales had been brisk, and said she was focused on business and not on pleasure because she wasn't a big cherry blossom fan.

"I'm not as much of a flower person," she said. "I'm more of a skater girl."

Nadia Green's mother, Barbara Porter, meanwhile, devoted a great amount of time recently to cherry trees. As part of a project with George Washington University in the District, she recently helped to plant cherry trees at the school's campus in Mt. Vernon, Va., and got to see them in bloom for the first time this spring. She said in addition to their beauty, cherry trees are environmentally friendly because they are hardwoods and have a long lifespan.

"I could walk around here all day and feel like I'm in a dream," Porter said.