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Title: Norm Hayashi Interview
Narrator: Norm Hayashi
Interviewer: Virginia Yamada
Location: Emeryville, California
Date: March 12, 2019
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-468-21

<Begin Segment 21>

VY: So over time, what kind of changes have you seen in the industry? Has it gotten smaller?

NH: Well, the big nursery, one of them, couple of them survived, most of them, they closed up because of a housing development, especially in the last two, three years, bare land that could be knocked out, it's a premium now.

VY: Is that because, initially, when the nurseries were started, there was not a lot of houses built, it was more open, and then over time that became more of a premium area for people to live?

NH: Right. Usually on open land, ex-farmland. When we first started our nursery, I used to hunt out there for pheasant. I used to walk two feet off our property into the farmers, he let me hunt for pheasant, and there was quail there. We never had a fence around the nursery and nobody broke into it, middle of nowhere. But I think, also, the last two generations, probably, they don't have time to do simple gardening, they don't have the need to have flowers in their house, whatever. But mainly, I guess, as you notice, a lot of the houses around here don't have yards. But it takes a lot of work to maintain a yard anyway. People that love it, they do a good job, because their energy's focused into it.

VY: So you think that, is it more the... did the nurseries just sort of close their business down completely, or did some of them move to a different area that was a little, had more space?

NH: Yes, most of them moved out of the area. If they did, I'm not familiar with a lot of cut flower growers that moved out. I think that's what happened on the other side, west side, there were a lot of cut flower growers and they were just kind of forced out of the area. You can't start early, you have tractors mixing soil, you have to be careful when you're spraying, because some of the houses would come right up to the property.

VY: Did that become a problem as time went by, like as more houses were built closer to your nursery, did people complain about things?

NH: They complained one time, I had a couple break-ins, so I put this barbed wire thing on top, and so happened, he came over and he says, "This is just like Vietnam." So I took it down, two days later, I was broken in again. And when people break in, they vandalize, they didn't actually take things. But they would break things, probably kids. And I understand, nobody likes to look at barbed wire and all that kind of thing, so I took it down and I left it off.

VY: Did the break-ins happen very often?

NH: No. If they break in to a heated house and then do something to the heating system or leave the doors open, we could lose the crop overnight or something. I had to secure the greenhouses, too, as we go on. If somebody was bent on vandalism or anything, that wouldn't stop 'em, they'd just break in.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.