Frank Masao Okamura (May 5, 1911 – January 9, 2006) was a Japanese-born American

horticulturalist Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

who helped popularize the cultivation of

bonsai Bonsai ( ja, 盆栽, , tray planting, ) is the Japanese art of growing and training miniature trees in pots, developed from the traditional Chinese art form of ''penjing''. Unlike ''penjing'', which utilizes traditional techniques to produce ...

in America.

Biography

Born in

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

, Okamura emigrated to California at the age of 13. He lost his small gardening business when in 1942, Okamura, his wife, and his two daughters were interned at

Manzanar War Relocation Center Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, it was one o ...

as a result of

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...

. After the war, the Okamuras relocated to New York City. Okamura found work at the

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) is a botanical garden in the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. It was founded in 1910 using land from Mount Prospect Park in central Brooklyn, adjacent to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum. The garden holds ...

in 1947. He was brought on to help restore the vandalized Japanese garden and to look after their ailing bonsai collection. George Avery, also of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, noticed an influx of bonsai trees returning from the war with American soldiers. He enlisted the help of Okamura to develop a lesson plan for the care of bonsai. Okamura began lecturing nationwide, teaching over 6,000 students over three decades. He was considered one of three major teachers of bonsai in America. Under his direction, the bonsai collection of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden grew from 11 plants to over 1,000. He retired from the Garden in 1981. His daughter, Mihoko, was the secretary of

D. T. Suzuki , self-rendered in 1894 as "Daisetz", was a Japanese-American Buddhist monk, essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, translator, and writer. He was a scholar and author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in s ...

Awards

Okamura was awarded the

Order of the Sacred Treasure The is a Japanese order, established on 4 January 1888 by Emperor Meiji as the Order of Meiji. Originally awarded in eight classes (from 8th to 1st, in ascending order of importance), since 2003 it has been awarded in six classes, the lowest ...

with Silver Rays in 1981 by Emperor

Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

Gallery

File:BBG - Carissa macrocarpa var. Horizontalis - Cascade by Frank Okamura.jpg, ''

Carissa macrocarpa ''Carissa macrocarpa'' is a shrub native to tropical and southern Africa. It is commonly known as the Natal plum and, in South Africa, the large num-num. In Zulu, as well as in the Bantu tribes of Uganda, it is called ''Amathungulu'' or ''umT ...

'' bonsai developed by Frank Okamura File:Ficus battieri bonsai at the BBG, August 2, 2008.jpg, '' Ficus battieri'' bonsai developed by Frank Okamura File:Carpinus japonica bonsai at the BBG, August 2, 2008.jpg, '' Carpinus japonica'' bonsai developed by Frank Okamura

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Okamura, Frank 1911 births 2006 deaths American horticulturists Bonsai_artists People from Hiroshima Japanese emigrants to the United States Japanese-American internees Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure