Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Henry Nishi Interview II
Narrator: Henry Nishi
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Santa Monica
Date: April 8, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-nhenry_2-02-0002

<Begin Segment 2>

RP: I wanted to go back and talk a little bit about the, your father's involvement with landscaping in the Westwood, Brentwood area. Can you give us a feeling for the styles and the trends of landscapes during the '30s and early '40s? What were people desiring in terms of a landscape? Especially the high-end clients.

HN: The, in that area, because of the, the hire end, more estate type of homes, it was a big demand for specimen trees, mature trees. And a lot of olive trees, olive, and it was a lot of olive orchards that were going out of business. And these were really old olives, maybe fifty, hundred years old olive trees. They're very desirable. And he went into relocating, or moving, moving trees, which was quite an art in those days. There was only two or three other companies moving trees.

RP: Your father went into that.

HN: One was my father, yeah.

RP: What kind of specialized equipment did he have or acquire for, for that job?

HN: Primarily you had to have a big truck. At that time, 5-foot, a 5-foot box was about the biggest, and sometimes, very rarely, 6-foot boxes, which were, I don't know by tonnage how much they weighed. But most of the loading of a big tree like that was done by a power winch. Winched up, rolled up to the, on top of the truck bed. Opposed to today, of course, they use a crane. But in those days they used rollers and a power wench.

RP: Did you actually watch them?

HN: I used to love doing that, watched, help.

RP: What did you do?

HN: Catch the rollers as they slid down the ramp and bring 'em up to the front, front of the, of the load. Just primarily just watching.

RP: And so most of these trees ended up in a, planted in estate style landscapes?

HN: Yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. Was there a, what other types of landscape materials were desirable? For instance, were palm trees big in those days, tropical?

HN: Not too much palms. It was, well, yeah, there was, there was palms. But just general ornamental nursery stock. There was some Oriental gardens going up too, which Dad liked to do, Japanese gardens. There was a lot of tropical material.

RP: So as the West Los Angeles, Brentwood area developed, your father's business grew along with, with that.

HN: Yeah. Because of the, the west side was developing. People were moving out to the west. Of course, Westwood Village was coming up and Bel Air, Palisades.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.