Posted on: Tuesday, September 11, 2001
May Arstad Neal Moir, gardening maven, dead at 93
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer
May Arstad Neal Moir, who shared her secrets on growing and arranging flowers with thousands of Hawai'i gardeners, died Friday. She was 93.
Her garden in Nu'uanu Valley was known to horticulturists around the world. She introduced many tropical plants to Hawai'i, bred dozens of new orchid varieties, inspired many professional landscapers and wrote several books, including the classic "The Garden Watcher," a down-home volume that documented a year's changes in her own backyard, called "Lipolani," "tropical heaven."
For nearly 50 years, Moir also designed the weekly floral arrangements that decorate the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
"She was an excellent gardener, way above normal in technical and aesthetic skills," said landscape architect Leland Miyano. "She was always willing to help others. She always shared her time and plants with anyone who was interested."
After graduating from Punahou School, May Arstad married Charles M. Neal, with whom she had a daughter, Peggy. The Neals lived in Manoa, where she tended a large garden and began a business, making and selling jams and jellies in gift packages made of lauhala she wove herself. She later became a partner in her husband's real estate business.
After Neal's death, she married agronomist W.W. Goodale Moir in 1949, and the two, both orchid enthusiasts and avid gardeners, began transforming the undeveloped grassy landscape around their Nu'uanu home into a tropical garden.
She was a pioneer in landscaping with bromeliads and succulents. On vacations, Moir and her husband collected and brought home exotic orchids and plants from Asia, Central America, Madagascar and Australia. Among many successes, she's credited with introducing the popular giant yellow heliconia to Hawai'i.
A dendrobrium orchid, May Neal, is named for her, said landscape architect Ted Green.
"She helped put Hawai'i on horticulture map," Miyano said. "A lot of people who came through Hawai'i stopped to visit. Some of the best gardeners and landscape professionals always used her as a standard of how to put together a garden."
Moir worked regularly in her garden, which was featured in many magazines and coffee table books around the world, until she fell about a year ago.
"She called herself a dirt gardener," Miyano said. "She was definitely a hands-on type."
A May Moir memorial garden is planned for Foster Botanical Garden, which benefited over the years from May's advice and donations.
Moir is survived by her daughter, Peggy M. Vollmann of Honolulu; grandchildren Richard Cornetti of Raleigh, N.C., Christine Worstell of Independence, Mo., and Suzanne Zola of Kona; and great-grandchildren, Isaac, Melissa and Mary Katherine Cornetti of North Carolina, Jennifer, Steven and Michael Worstell of Missouri, and Tai Rose Gines of Waimea. No service is planned. Arrangements by Ultimate Cremation Services. The family asks that donations be sent to the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
Advertiser garden writer Heidi Bornhorst contributed to this report.
