Licensing

Omoto brothers

There are gardeners on my mother’s side too. Her four brothers: Tak, Herb, Sam, and Mako Omoto are/were Kibei gardeners with their own routes. One uncle lives in Seattle. The other three had/have routes in the Los Angeles area.

My grandmother had eight children—four boys & four girls. Of the two girls, two of their husbands also worked in gardening, making six gardeners in the immediate family. If you look at any of their yards, although they’re all fairly neatly kept, none of them are very elaborate. My Uncle Mako said once that he worked hard all day caring for other people’s yards, so he’d rather spend his free time doing other things.