Lost LA: Descanso Gardens (film)

Special episode of the Lost LA public television series that tells the story of Descanso Gardens, a botanical garden in La Cañada Flintridge, California, that is run by Los Angeles County. The wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans plays a key role in the history of the garden.

Lost LA: Descanso Gardens begins with a history of the land the garden sits on, from the use of the oak groves by the native Tongva people to Spanish conquest to the American era that transformed land into a commodity. In the 1930s, wealthy publishing magnate Manchester Boddy purchased an estate that would become the site of the garden. In landscaping the grounds, Boddy became interested in Asian plants and in the process got to know local Japanese American nursery owners. When two of those nursery families—the Uyematsus, who ran Star Nursery, and the Yoshimuras, who ran San Gabriel Nursery—became caught up in the mass forced removal of Japanese Americans in 1942, Boddy bought out their entire inventories at what were claimed to be "fair" prices. With the camellias from the two nurseries, Boddy became a commercial flower grower, capitalizing on the growing demand for cut flowers. When postwar changes in market conditions saw a slowdown in the cut flower business, Boddy experimented by opening his estate to the public. But opposition from neighbors eventually led to Boddy selling the land to the county, which then transformed the estate into Descanso Gardens. The episode goes on to other key developments in the garden's history including the role of the Descanso Gardens Guild, a fundraising annex whose first project was the California Native Plant Garden, and the Japanese garden and teahouse built in the 1960s. Current issues in the garden include the renovation of aging infrastructure, the continuing movement towards native plants in part to cut water usage, and educational programs aimed at various age groups. Novelist and public historian Naomi Hirahara is featured in the segments on the incarceration and the Japanese garden.

Produced by KCETLink and the USC Libraries, the Lost LA series features little known stories of the history of Los Angeles. A second episode in the series, "Three Views of Manzanar: Adams, Lange, Miyatake," focuses on another aspect of the Japanese American incarceration experience.

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