A world-class Kona community garden celebrates new ownership with the return of the Grow Hawaiian Festival on Saturday.
Following a four-year closure, the Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden reopens with a celebration and the family friendly festival from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in Captain Cook. The free events are presented by the Friends of Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden and Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.
The annual Grow Hawaiian Festival is for lovers of plants, natural history, and Hawaiian culture, according to organizers. Those attending can meet master gardeners, Hawaiian herbal practitioners, professional horticulturists, taro farmers, weavers, botanists and entomologists, and a host of others whose lives revolve in one way or another around the natural and cultural history of Hawaii. Each will be giving demonstrations, providing hands-on activities, and answering questions.
There will also be garden tours led by experts in Hawaiian culture, horticulture, and rare plant conservation. Tours are scheduled at 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Bishop Museum botanist Clyde Imada will lead the tour at 11, and David Orr, curator of botanical collections at Waimea Valley, will lead the last tour.
Experts on plant conservation projects and traditional agriculture in Kona will also provide presentation on the main stage. There’s also be musicians taking the stage, providing live entertainment.
Pumehana Imada of the Bishop Museum Natural Science Department, will give a talk on the Bishop Museum bird collection and its significance to Science.
Bishop Museum President and CEO Melanie Ide will share her vision for the future of the garden and Bishop Museum.
Friends of Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden President Maile Melrose will recount the story of the last few years and the nonprofit’s successful acquisition of the garden.
The festival also celebrates Hawaiian culture and the plants that are such an important part of it.
Expert kapa maker Roen Hufford will be on hand with some of her students to show the ancient art of making cloth from wauke bark.
Hawaiian ‘awa expert Isaac Kaiana Runnels will share his knowledge of traditions, cultivation, and preparation of ‘awa in Hawaii.
Lisa Raymond Schattenberg is coming from Maui with a demonstration of Hawaiian dyes and dye plants.
La’au lapa’au (traditional herbalist) Kaohu Chang and her students will be at the event with a display of important plants in customary Hawaiian medicine. There’ll also be a ku’i (poi pounding) activity in which attendees can make their own poi from taro and ulu. Wood carving, cordage making, weaving, and a lomi lomi tent, as well as others, will also be featured.
Local conservation and cultural groups will have informational displays about their projects, and there will be a market where items like lauhala hats and poi boards will be for sale.
The 12-acre garden brings traditional Hawaiian farming alive in an authentic setting of Hawaiian agroforestry and archaeological sites of the Kona Field System. Four traditional planting zones include canoe plants, up to 150 cultivars and 250 native plant species.
The event is special in many ways this year. The garden has been closed to the public for four years, and the annual event has not been held since February 2015. The nonprofit Friends of Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden recently purchased the garden from Bishop Museum at a cost of $1.4 million using public and private funds, including state and federal grants from the State of Hawaii’s Legacy Land Conservation Program and Community Forest Program.
The County of Hawaii may also provide support from the Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Conservation (PONC) Fund and the garden now is permanently protected by conservation easements. It also the first community forest ever designated in the Pacific Region by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.
The land is a community legacy from Amy Greenwell, who passed away in 1974. Renowned Bishop Museum anthropologists Douglas Yen, Yosihiko Sinoto, and Kenneth Emory honored the friendship they had forged with Greenwell over the years by helping design the garden, with later excavations by Patrick Kirch, honored Pacific author.
The event is free to the public and everyone is welcome. Overflow parking will be available at the lower level of Kealakekua Ranch Center, with shuttle service provided by Hawaii Forest and Trail. Sponsors include ChoiceMART, Kamehameha Schools and Try Look Inside/Oui Wai Graphics.
For more information, including a full schedule of events, visit www.amygreenwell.garden.