Hawaiian farmers, traditional artists, and conservation professionals will share their love for plants with the public through presentations, demonstrations, display tables and hands-on activities Saturday at the annual Grow Hawaiian Festival in Captain Cook.
Hawaiian farmers, traditional artists, and conservation professionals will share their love for plants with the public through presentations, demonstrations, display tables and hands-on activities Saturday at the annual Grow Hawaiian Festival in Captain Cook.
The free event, now in its 11th year, runs from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden in Captain Cook. Admission to the Bishop Museum garden is also waived for the day.
The festival will boast a lineup of cultural practitioners working in tents among a landscape of loulu palms, aalii bushes, awa plants, and other native plants and Polynesian crops at the the garden, which is located just south of mile marker 110 on Mamalahoa Highway in South Kona. At some tents, woodworkers display of their art, at others, kapa makers will be beating wauke, and those watching may be invited to sit at a kua and beat along with them.
Hands-on activities that are planned throughout the day include ohe kapala stamping with George Place; cordage making with Gary Eoff; nose flute making and playing with Albert Carbonel and Ka’uhane Morton; lei with Momi Greene; lauhala weaving with the Kona weavers; poi pounding with Jerry Konanui and Keahi Tomas; and lomilomi with Wesley Sen and Maile Napoleon.
There will also be a booth where botanists and entomologists can identifiy plants and insects brought by the public, as well as information booths about health care programs and dry forest restoration. Agencies, nonprofits, school groups, and others involved in native plant conservation will also be in attendance to promote how they are working for native plants and the aina.
On stage, festival goers can watch a presentation on kalo growing in Kona, hear a short ukulele concert, enjoy a lauhala hat show, and learn about native plant conservation programs in Kona. This year speakers include National Tropical Botanical Garden director Chipper Wichman, Kona taro farmer Clarence Medieros Jr., and Bishop Museum archaeologist Mara Mulrooney. Hawaiian food will also be available for purchase.
The 11th Annual Grow Hawaiian Festival is supported by a grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Ahahui Events Program. The Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden is Bishop Museum’s native plant arboretum on Hawaii Island.
For more information, call 323-3318.