In 1927 Fujitaro Kubota bought five acres of logged-off swampland in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle and began his garden. A 1907 emigrant from the Japanese Island of Shikoku, he established the Kubota Gardening Company in 1923. Fujitaro was a man with a dream. Entirely self-taught as a gardener, he wanted to display the beauty of the Northwest in a Japanese manner and was soon designing and installing gardens throughout the Seattle area.
As Fujitaro’s landscaping business prospered, his Rainier Beach garden grew to include twenty aces. It was the family home, the business office, the design and display center. And nursery to grow plant materials for the gardens installed by the Kubota Gardening company. The family was very generous in sharing access to the garden, and for many years it was a center for social and cultural activities for the Japanese community in Seattle.
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3 comments:
I just realized how crappy photos look on this blog, I guess depending on what type of computer, operating system, browser, monitor you are using. Very dark on my end at work.
When I lived in Rainier Beach, the gardens were literally on the other side of my back yard fence. They're amazing, infrequently visited, and the best place I can think of to explore at twilight.
Kubota was also the landscape manager at Seattle University before Cisco Morris and traveled all over the west moving massive trees from construction sites to SU. I still have yet to see his gardens. What an awesome guy!
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