The Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden is working with nonprofit organizations to encourage University of California, Los Angeles to preserve its Hannah Carter Japanese Garden, which is currently in danger of being sold.
The organizations, the Garden Conservancy and the North American Japanese Garden Association, along with several others, have joined forces to create the Coalition to Save the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden to spread the word and build community support of keeping the garden intact and open to the public.
In January, UCLA announced plans to sell the garden due to financial pressure caused by steep budget cuts.
Jeanette Schelin, director of the Japanese garden at Cal State Long Beach, attended a public meeting in Bel-Air on Jan. 31 to identify ways to advocate for the preservation of the UCLA Hannah Carter Garden.
Preservationists are hoping to encourage better management practices in order preserve the garden or explore ways to find another organization to take over management of it.
“Many cities have turned over gardens that they cannot run successfully to nonprofit organizations who do run them successfully,” Schelin said. “The UCLA garden could fall into this category.”
As a member of the coalition, the Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden has consulted with volunteers working to save the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden on ways they can form a friends support group and also organize events at their garden to generate earned income to cover operating costs, according to Schelin.
“Gardens are precious community resources that are in very short supply,” Schelin said. “They take many years to grow and develop but can be destroyed in a short period of time.”
Kendall Brown, a CSULB Asian art history professor and an authority on Japanese gardens in America, spoke at several meetings to emphasize the significance of the Hannah Carter garden. He also talked on the value of Japanese gardens as cultural landmarks and educational resources.
Brown encouraged students to engage in educating the UCLA administration about the historical importance of the garden, its relevance to education and the fact that selling this example of Asian cultural heritage in Los Angeles would be an affront to Asian Americans.
“The Hannah Carter Garden is one of the first major residential gardens built after World War II, signaling the return of Japanese culture to the American mainstream,” Brown said.