Densho Digital Archive - Henry Nishi Interview I (denshovh-nhenry

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: So business remained pretty steady even during the Depression years?

HN: Yeah. I remember during the Depression years it got tough, it got tough. And then eventually, as you know today, they don't have flower shops like they used to have back in those days. 'Cause you could buy, go to the market and buy, buy flowers. And you could actually go to the flower market and buy flowers if you wanted to.

RP: Today? These days.

HN: Today. Yeah.

RP: Your father had this rose growing area in Pacoima.

HN: Yeah.

RP: And tell us, what market did he, did he grow for?

HN: The, the rose, the rose business was, was selling the rose plants to nurseries. And there was, because of southern California weather, a lot of roses were grown in southern California and shipped back east to nurseries back east where weather was much colder where it wasn't feasible to grow, grow roses. So it was a, it was a shipping business. Not too much for local business, but for back, back east, eastern states.

RP: So he would... they would be dug up as bare root roses and shipped back...

HN: Bare root, yeah. I think there was like five roses to a bundle and they all had, the names had to be tagged. I think five and whatever the order was, we had to fill those orders. Oh, we didn't. I mean, they, they had big, like a, like a warehouse that all, all the roses came and then they were all bunched and got ready for shipping. They were packed in the...

RP: Sawdust?

HN: In the, in boxes for shipping. And packed, after you got all the roses packed into a box, then they were filled with sawdust, wood shavings, then wetted down and closed up then shipped, ready for shipping. But that, I wasn't, I knew that was going on but I never worked at doing that.

RP: But you visited the growing area?

HN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RP: What, what varieties of roses did your dad grow? Did he...

HN: All, all the varieties that were... I don't remember, remember all the varieties, but there was, there was a lot of varieties at the time. And those varieties at that time, they hardly, they don't exist any more today because they're all replace by newer hybrids.

RP: You said he occasionally get some accidental hybridization and new varieties.

HN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: One of which he named for your sister?

HN: Yeah, there was one, one rose that, that my dad discovered that he grew that was a new, new variety that named for my sister, Mary Nishi. But like I said, those, those old varieties don't exist today.

RP: Did he actually do any cross breeding of...

HN: Hybridizing?

RP: Hybridizing.

HN: No, no.

RP: What was his, what was the name of his business?

HN: Pacific Rose Company.