If you have been a Federal Way resident for more than a decade, you have probably been in Joe Asahara’s store.

The Oriental Garden Center has been on the corner of 306th and Pacific Highway South since Joe and his brother-in-law first opened the front door for business in 1960.

If you needed any landscaping plants or the tools to do it, the Oriental Garden Center was the only place in town.

Joe is 83 now, but he shows few signs of slowing down.

“Old Customers come in, the first thing they say, ‘You’re still here!’” Joe laughs, but he admits that the garden supply business has been challenging. “We just finished up our anniversary sale last month, we did pretty good, but with the economy...the nursery has been trailing down.”

Competition from the box stores in town is another reason, Joe says, but along with his son David and daughter Joan, they were able to diversify and begin carrying brand name maintenance equipment like Honda mowers, Shindaiwa trimmers and Stihl chainsaws.

“My son David, he runs the repair shop too.”

I asked Joe why his business does so well, and a customer wearing suspenders and a ball cap piped up from behind some mowers, “They’re good people…and they give good service!”

The gift shop section of the store is robust with neat merchandise like wind chimes, garden mirror balls, sun hats, Japanese lanterns and small, lion-like Foo Dogs, “Those Foo dogs, they’re to protect, bring good spirits.” Joe explains.

Gail Sammons runs this part of the store, and Joe showed off some very nice Bamboo furniture and a neat portable waterfall. “After the nursery stuff trailed down, we went strong on gift stuff like this too.”

Joe used to sell more specialized items like Sculpted Pines and high altitude plants, but those sales were slow, “Alpine Firs…it’s a lost art.”

But near the front entrance he shows me a beautiful Bonsai tree.

“You know how old this tree is…about 185 years old!”

Forty years ago, a friend of Joe’s brought the tree by with the top broken off.

“He was going to throw it away… but I took it.” About fifteen years ago, Joe began carefully trimming the branches and pruning the roots, until the Western Hemlock took on the lines of a classic Bonsai.

“Mertensiana…that’s the name…just like it sounds.”

Is it for sale? How much? Joe laughs, “It’s probably worth $15,000…Oh..if I sell it, I’ll be sick!”

Just a few years after the business started, Joe did a TV segment on Channel Eleven to demonstrate the art of Bonsai. “Bonsai was not too popular at the time…there was one other guy, ‘Cecil Solly’…he was like a God…but this was way before Ciscoe and Ed Hume.”

Joe still offers Bonsai classes on Saturdays in the fall and winter.

“I like to have about four to six people…Nine am to noon…it’s $60 per person, and we supply the plant, the pot and the dirt.”
Can anybody learn Bonsai? “Takes patience…but it’s not real hard…I make it fun!”

“I’m like old furniture…if it’s useful, you don’t throw it away.”
But though the days can sometimes still be long ones, Joe laughs again,

“If it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it!”