Category: General

Volunteer Opportunity

The Board of Water Supply and Oʻahu Master Gardeners are partnering to bring you a free soil workshop at Hālawa Xeriscape Garden! Included in the day is a pH test of your 1/2-cup soil sample, plus a garden tour & garden give-back (light weeding). Registration is through Eventbrite, July 9 to 16.

Scan the QR code or head to:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dig-in-soil-malama-aina-day-tickets-1461987767769

Dig In! – A Soil Workshop & Mālama ʻĀina

Saturday, July 19, 2025 | 9:00–11:00 AM | Hālawa Xeriscape Garden

9:00 AM – Mālama ʻāina (weeding)
9:30 AM – Garden tour with soil intro
9:45 AM – How to take a soil sample
10:00 AM – Intro to soil testing, including pH, nutrients, amendments, fertilizers
– Intro to landscaping with native plants and food plants around your home
– How to contact the Master Gardener Program with questions
10:45 AM – Optional Q&A
11:00 AM – Bring your lunch and enjoy the garden! We’ll provide light snacks.

For those with a garden, bring the following to share with the other attendees:

1) Half a cup of soil to test its pH
2) Photos of your plants on a cell phone. (We might be able to diagnose your plant challenges with those photos.)

We will do our best to help you improve your soil and will connect you with the MG Helpline for further assistance. Our main objectives are to help home gardeners produce food and to encourage planting of native and Polynesian-introduced plants.

Youth under 18 must be accompanied by adult/guardian.

Bring a water bottle, closed-toe shoes with tread, sunscreen, bug spray, and hat. Lightweight long sleeves and pants recommended. Carpooling recommended.

Photos: Kupu Hawaiʻi staff helping at HXG and field trip at UH Urban Garden Center.

Aloha from Friends of Halawa Xeriscape Garden,

Save the Date!  Announcing our 2025 Annual Unthirsty Plant Sale on Saturday, August 2, 2025, from 9am-1pm at Halawa Xeriscape Garden, featuring beautiful drought tolerant plants and conservation resource information booths. Please plan to come early to our event this year and note the earlier end time at 1pm. Payments with major credit card only.

Current FOHXG members will show their valid membership card for early bird entry at 8:30 a.m. and 10% off plant purchases. Please view the plant sale flyer at the link below.

Click to download the flier PDF

 

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Time to Join or renew your FOHXG Membership

Your membership helps us to continue our mission to promote outdoor water conservation through the use of Xeriscape.
Completed membership applications with check payment must be received at our P.O. box by July 15, 2025 in order to be processed before plant sale day. Click the link below to download a FOHXG membership application. You may also email or call us by July 1, 2025 to request a form be sent to you. Completed applications with check payment should be mailed to our PO Box.  Any recently renewed memberships and Lifetime members membership cards will be mail out by July 15, 2025.  Please contact us with any questions at smikami@hbws.org or (808) 748-5315.

Download the FOHXG Membership Application PDF

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Garden Updates

Thank you for your patience and please note the garden will be closed to the public on Wednesday, July 2, 2025 for garden maintenance and July 30, 2025 to prepare for our annual Plant Sale Event. 

Volunteer Opportunities: If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a garden or nursery volunteer at Halawa Xeriscape Garden, please contact us at smikami@hbws.org or (808)748-5315.

Thank you very much to everyone who helped us before, during and after our Annual Unthirsty Plant Sale! It was a big success and we really appreciate your support! We will continue to keep you updated on garden workdays and events all to support our mission of promoting outdoor water conservation through xeriscape.

Please note our updated Garden Public Open Hours

Wednesdays, 9AM – 1PM and

Pre-announced Saturdays 9AM-1PM (9AM – Noon:Garden Workdays).

Closure dates will be posted on-line and on-site.

www.boardofwatersupply.com.

Please sign up to join us next Saturday morning, September 14, 2024, at Hālawa Xeriscape Garden from 9AM-Noon.

We could really use your help removing weeds and weedy vines.

Call (808)748-5315 or email: workshops@hbws.org

FOHXG Supporters:
We really need help removing all the weeds and
weedy vines in our garden before our Annual Unthirsty Plant Sale.
If you would like to help please sign up:
Call (808)748-5315 or email: workshops@hbws.org

Aloha from Friends of Halawa Xeriscape Garden,

Time to Join or renew your FOHXG Membership: Your membership helps us to continue our mission to promote outdoor water conservation through the use of Xeriscape.

Completed membership applications with check payment must be received at our P.O. box by July 15, 2024 in order to be processed before plant sale day. Click the link below to download a FOHXG membership application. You may also email or call us by July 1, 2024 to request a form be sent to you.

Completed applications with check payment should be mailed to our PO Box. Any recently renewed memberships and Lifetime Members will be mailed a membership card by July 15, 2024.

Please contact us with any questions at smikami@hbws.org or (808) 748-5315.

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Garden update: We are excited to announce that installation of new roofing, energy efficient lighting and painting were completed and we are only pending new flooring in the garden office very soon. Thank you for your patience as the garden will remain temporarily closed to the public until plant sale day, August 3, 2024 as we focus on getting volunteers back in and plant sale preparations.

Volunteer Opportunities: If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a garden or nursery volunteer at Halawa Xeriscape Garden, please contact us at smikami@hbws.org or (808)748-5315.

Save the Date! Announcing our 2024 Annual Unthirsty Plant Sale on Saturday, August 3, 2024, from 9am-3pm at Halawa Xeriscape Garden, featuring beautiful drought tolerant plants and informational booths.

Current FOHXG members will show their valid membership card for early bird entry at 8:30 a.m. and 10% off plant purchases. Please view the plant sale flyer below.

By Heidi Bornhorst

On a windy and sometimes rainy day, Wednesday March 6, 2024, some board members and volunteers from the Friends of Halawa Xeriscape Garden (FOHXG) got a tour of Foster Botancial Garden (FBG) led by Botanist Naomi Hoffman and coordinated by Education Program Specialist Iris Fukunaga.

Did you know that FOHXG, our non-profit garden support group, was modeled on the Friends of Honolulu Botanical Gardens?  (Mahalo to FOHXG founding member Paul Weissich, Director emeritus of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens)

We had a great tour seeing some of the fabulous historic and XERIC trees and plants.

Including was the Quipo, a giant fat trunked, water storing tree from South America and its African counterpart the Baobab tree.

We saw a super rare and Exceptional Tree, the Loulu palm known scientifically as Pritchardia lowreyana.  It is more than 150 years old, but very slow growing.  It was originally collected in Nuʻuanu Valley by the garden’s first Botanist Dr. William Hillebrand and was planted in 1851.

It is now extinct in Nuʻuanu.  Happily, Botanist Hoffman informed us that a new population of this rare palm was found in 2008 by Joel Lau and Kenji Suzuki, just below the summit of Pu`u Ohulehule (this is the ridgeline that separates Waikane and Kahana Valleys).

We saw the Double Coconut, Coco de Mer, whose fruit take six years to fully mature and becomes viable to grow new palms. The fruit were the happy horticulture result of hand pollination by Plant Propagator Romel Silva, with pollen air mailed from the Singapore Botanical Garden.

We took a group photo amidst the buttress roots of the Kapok trees, two of which grace upper terrace.

After our tour we had home lunches in the FBG classroom and shared special tasty treats, some from as far as Hokkaido (Mahalo Doug!).

Iris Fukunaga talked to us some more about upcoming educational and volunteer opportunities among our shared gardens.

Note: HBG will be holding their Midsummer Night’s Gleam on Saturday July 20, 2024, for the first time in four years (post COVID). They are looking for volunteers and keiki activities.

Ohi’a lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) is a flowering tree endemic to the islands of Hawai’i.  Proclaimed the state tree of Hawai’i, it is the most common native tree in the state.  It is a highly variable plant as it can be seen as a tree or a shrub, and the flowers can be red (most common), orange, pink, yellow or white (most rare).

In Hawaiian mythology, Ohi’a and Lehua were two young lovers.  The goddess Pele fell in love with Ohi’a but he rejected her advances.  In a fit of jealousy she turned Ohi’a into a twisted gnarly tree.  Lehua was devastated and the other gods took pity towards her.  They turned Lehua into a flower and placed her on the tree.  Legend has it that if you pick a lehua flower off of an ohi’a tree, it will rain.  Tears from heaven for separating the two lovers.

In recent years, a strain of fungus has attacked the ohi’a forests on the Big Island.  Once healthy trees would die in a matter of a few days or a few weeks.  This is referred to as Rapid Ohi’a Death (ROD).  Many native birds and insects rely on the ohi’a lehua and the ohi’a diminishing numbers has caused many of these species to become endangered.  Luckily there is an organization called Ohi’a Legacy Initiative.  The vision of this organization is “to make the ohi’a lehua tree a symbol of the Hawaiian Islands, to spread awareness of native plants, perpetuate Hawaiian culture, provide habitat for native birds, and increase the health and vitality of the land for the people of Hawai’i.”  The Ohi’a Legacy Initiative gives away ohi’a plants so that they will become a common feature of residential gardens and public places.

Having received my plant in 2019, here is my very first ohi’a lehua blossom:

This color variety is called “lehua mamo”.