Descanso Gardens

This guide to Descanso Gardens in Los Angeles begins in February 1942, when agents ordered the Yoshimura and Uyematsu families, owners of some of California's finest camellia nurseries, to sell everything rooted in the ground before their forced removal to detention camps. It follows newspaper publisher Elias Manchester Boddy and his gardener, Howard Asper, who bought out the stock for his private estate, Rancho del Descanso. The camellia forest that grew from that sale, layer after layer of glossy leaves and waxy blooms, still fills the grounds around you.