A commercial plant nursery in Los Angeles. Not monumental architecture, not civic infrastructure, not industrial ruin—just a business where people bought citrus trees and bedding plants and bags of soil amendment. Masumi photographed it anyway.

This is her only documented California commission, created in 1987 during the early years of her commissioned work. The subject suggests something about her approach: she didn’t limit herself to buildings designed to impress. A nursery mattered because it served ordinary needs, because people came there looking for something alive to take home and care for.

Southern California’s year-round growing climate supported a robust nursery industry. The Three Star served residential gardeners maintaining yards in the region’s Mediterranean climate, landscape contractors installing plantings at shopping centers and apartment complexes, collectors seeking succulents and tropicals. A place embedded in the rhythms of a particular region, a particular way of living.

Masumi’s panoramic technique documents the nursery’s layout—the rows of plants, the sales structures, the spatial organization of a working horticultural business. Not a glamorous subject, but a real one. A reminder that her method served everyday commerce as readily as courthouses and stadiums.