Chapter 5 - Na' Aina Kai Botanical Gardens.
Introduction
Na' Aina Kai Botanical Gardens was
founded by Joyce Doty and her husband. Joyce is the ex-wife of
Charles Schultz. Na' Aina Kai Botanical Gardens started
originally as her home and personal gardens, and has grown to 230 acres of plants
and trees. In 2000, it was given to a non-profit organization who
maintains it. Joyce is the CEO of the non-profit.
In order to help maintain the garden, there are tours,
weddings and corporate events. The tours are kept small at 8
people and go at pre-scheduled times.
Tour
By sheer luck our tour was lead by
Joyce and only had 4 people. Having Joyce lead us around Na'
Aina Kai Botanical Gardens, was like spending 3 hours with grandma in
her prize garden. It was amazing.
Pool
Joyce had this pool built in the
early 80's before it was popular to build natural looking pools.
The person who created it went on to
become famous and built most of the natural looking pools for the
island resorts. It uses rock salt instead of chlorine in the filtration system.
Pod
I don't know what this Pod is
from, but there were numerous trees with pods, similar to
this.
Poinciana Maze
The first major addition to the
garden was the maze. The maze was made out of hedges. In each
of the outlets of the maze is a different bronze statue and plants.
Below are just of few pictures from the maze.
Flowers
The garden had numerous flowers
from all over the world's tropical environments. Because
Hawaii is 60-85 degrees year round there is no dormant season.
Palm Trees
The
garden had numerous palm trees. Below are two examples.
The one on the right which Andrea is in front of, lives
about 100 hundreds. It is only at 15 years old now.
Sometime between 60 and 100 years, it will flower once, and when
it
flowers it will drop it seeds and die.
Cactus
One of my favorite exhibits was
the cactus garden. It had cactus from all over the world.
Because cactus don't do well with water on the roots, Joyce and her
husband developed a way for the water to drain away from the
cactus. To accomplish this they mixed dirt with smashed lava rock.
In the middle of the cactus
exhibit there is a lion and a rabbit. The lion was added
first, but Joyce said that the lion was looking at something, so they
added the jack rabbit. This is just one example of there
positioning and attention to detail on the bronze statues throughout the
garden.
Nike Girl
Random Pictures
Below are some random pictures
taken around the gardens.
Garden Pond
Like all gardens, this one had a
pond with water fall. The pond had Koi.
Island Birds
These birds chase the garden
machinery around the garden.
Scenic Views
Hawaiian Village
As part of the education mission,
the gardens has created a Hawaiian village to help children understand
the history of Hawaii.
Trees
The gardens was a tree plantation.
There are 60,000 trees planted. The right is just
a small section of the Teak Trees. The left is the bronze
statue that commemorated 4 years of work to plant 60,000
trees.
Children's Garden
The last exhibit is the Children's
Garden which introduces children to plants.
