Stoner Park, located at the residential area not too far from West LA Sawtelle’s Japantown. In recent years, it seems more and more cherry blossom trees are dying here.
Several of them are already cut down. 100 cherry blossom trees were planted on this park in 1994 with the cooperations of a local Japanese American organization and gardeners. They held annual cherry blossom festivals but only 7 trees bloomed this year. The last time they were able to have the festival was 2 years ago. It is due to the water shortage and the aging of the volunteer gardeners that have been taking care of the trees. Becoming a gardener was the quickest way for Japanese Americans to make money and it built the foundations of the postwar Japanese American community. The Southern California Gardener’s Foundation was formed in 1955 and had about 7000 members at its heyday, supporting each other in both work and living. However, many Japanese Americans became noticed in the society and the numbers of successors gradually decreased with it. Currently, the average age of the members are 77 years old and they have no choice but to quit to do health reasons. More recently, there has been discussions about the foundation HQ being bought out. Japanese gardeners made the foundation of the current Japanese American community. However, the curtains are drawing to its history with the trend of the times.