Interviewee: Richard Yamaguchi

Relationship to Nikkei gardeners: His mother, Hoshiko Yamaguchi, started the Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery

Date: July 17, 2007

Location: Japanese American National Museum

Brief Summary: Richard speaks of how his mother began planting the seeds that would eventually become the Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery

Transcription
My name is Richard Yamaguchi. I'm from - I actually live in Clovis, California. The nursery, the Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery is in Sanger. And, that was started in 1956 when my mother went back to Japan to visit her parents. My grandfather had sent the tane, or the seeds, over from Owaji Island off of Osaka, Japan and those seeds - my mother started planting them in 1956 and that's how the nursery got started. To this day, we still have the nursery.

See part 2 and part 3 of this interview.

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This interview was conducted as part of the Opening Day activities for the exhibition Landscaping America: Beyond the Japanese Garden.