Among the camellias in buckets, hanging pots of fuchsias, trays of moss, and palm trees in barrels, Shichiro Hashimoto putters, watering and transplanting, enjoying the sunshine and letting his children run his busy nursery on Sawtelle Boulevard.

Hashimoto, 88, was once a pioneer. The Hashimoto Nursery, which opened in the 1920s, was one of the first in the neighborhood known as Sawtelle. By the late 1950s, there were more than 30. But now there are just seven; the pioneer has become a holdout.

He speaks for many of the longtime Sawtelle residents when he says he misses the old "one-man, one-lot" days. They lament as the nurseries, the aging stucco and clapboard houses and old duplexes and triplexes give way to luxury condominiums, high-priced apartments, mini-malls and office towers. Slowly, the old-timers say, a unique ethnic neighborhood is being transformed into just another part of West L.A.

"They're going to make more houses, tall houses," Hashimoto says of the development plans. "It's too bad. I don't care for these tall ones."

From the start, Sawtelle was a working-class area, settled around the turn of the century by people who were barred from other areas by racial covenants or high prices: Latinos, Japanese and poor whites. They worked at the Old Soldiers' Home (now the Veterans Administration Hospital), on the railroad, in the fields of lima beans and barley that covered much of the land between Sepulveda Boulevard and Barrington Avenue. And they worked in the houses, kitchens and gardens of the wealthy in Bel-Air, Beverly Hills and Brentwood.

Today, Sawtelle remains one of the most racially mixed neighborhoods on the Westside, with no group a majority. The 1990 Census counted 14,042 residents, of whom 48% were Anglo, 26% Latino, 23% Asian, and 3% black. (By comparison, the overall West Los Angeles-Century City-Rancho Park area was 73% Anglo).

The racial percentages in Sawtelle in the 1990 Census were virtually unchanged from 1980, but that is not to say it was a quiet decade. In fact, it was a period of considerable turnover and development.

The neighborhood was one of just a few on the Westside in which the population grew in the '80s--it was up 6.7%, because of a surge in construction activity. From 1980 to 1990, the number of dwelling units in Sawtelle increased by 692, or 10.6%.