Frank Nakamura grew up during the late Depression era and later, while his family grew flowers commercially for the cut flower industry located on Wall Street in Los Angeles, California. His family farmed the flowers in the section of La Mirada, California known as Blue Hills. Later Blue Hills Nursery was named after that location.

After Frank and Asaye Kubo married and moved to Whittier, they started a retail nursery on a section of land on Whittier Blvd. that had been an old lemon grove. (East Whittier was very rural in the early 1950's.) Frank personally picked up most of the plant material during the early years of business. He would go with his stake bed truck and hand-select the plant material. He would even pick up large loads of fertilizer from some of the farmers for resale. While Frank was busy with the plants, fertilizer, and nursery, his wife Asaye was busy with three children and working at the nursery, too!

From the 1950's through the early 1960's the priority was establishing the business and grooming the next generation of nursery owners. Growing the business was done in various ways: friendly customer service, knowledgeable sales staff, landscape design, and responsiveness to customers' needs.

The 1960's through the early 1970's brought an increased awareness of gardening and a desire to garden, accompanied by an explosion of indoor plant material.

To accommodate this new trend, a new building was constructed in the mid 60's. Since then there have been three minor remodels on the present building. Our current building was built with the intent to be a mini shopping mall to provide our customers with a destination where they could shop for various needs. We had a lawn mower shop, a beauty shop, a tropical fish store, a florist shop, and art gallery, and a gift store. Through the years those uses were discontinued, and now that entire west section of the building has been converted into a market.

Now under the management of Frank and Asaye's son Stan and his daughter Jennifer, the nursery has evolved into the present Blue Hills Nursery, still with the same friendly personal customer service, knowledgeable sales staff, landscape design, and responsiveness to customer needs.