Walking through his firm’s greenhouse complex west of Watsonville on San Andreas Road, Robert Kitayama explained how his family’s business evolved and succeeded when other cut flower nurseries failed.
After his father, Ray, and his uncle, Tom, left relocation camps at the end of World War II they started their own flower business in the Bay Area in 1948. They began growing carnations, were joined by other family members and soon had over a million square feet of greenhouse space in Union City.
In 1966, Ray moved his family to Colorado and opened another family nursery while three years later Robert’s Uncle Kee established another nursery on 250 acres in Watsonville.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Salinas Californian
