HAWAI'I'S GARDENS
Lei-plant workshops begin with growing flowers
By Heidi Bornhorst
Two exciting lei-plant workshops focusing on cherished and favorite plants for your own garden will be held on O'ahu in the near future.
Advertiser library photo
If you want to make your own lei, here's the chance to learn how to do it right. The cost is $10.
Two lei-plant workshops will teach what to plant and how to nurture foliage and blooms for lei. Nurseries will provide plants for sale.
Register for "Ho'oulu Hou: Growing Plants and Trees for Hula Lei" 2004 Workshops at www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/rnre/
Lei_Plant_Workshops.asp.
The workshops will be Aug. 28 from 8 a.m. to noon at Leeward Community College, and Sept. 11 from 8 a.m. to noon at Windward Community College.
Many lei plants and trees can be readily grown in home gardens. Increasing interest over the past two decades has taught us much about using native Hawaiian plants for lei and about what we can grow.
Many once-rare plants now flourish in home and community gardens. Na'u, our native Gardenia brighamii, is a prime example of a Hawaiian plant brought back from the brink of extinction by gardeners in Hawai'i.
We have much to share about growing, nurturing and using these fabulous and unique plants for making lei.
The workshop's featured speakers are lei makers and gardeners, including Marie McDonald, Brian Choy and myself. We will introduce lei trees and plants grown and available in home and urban gardens.
There also will be plants, books and lei-making demonstrations. Nursery growers will have native plants for sale so you can go right home and get into the garden after the seminars.
The agenda is subject to change, but here are events so far:
• 8 a.m.: Opening ceremony.
• 8:30 a.m.: Hawaiian Gathering Ethics, by Marie McDonald.
• 9:30 a.m.: Break.
• 10 a.m.: Growing Lei Plants in the Home Garden, by Brian Choy.
• 11 a.m.: Lei Plants for O'ahu, by Heidi Bornhorst.
• Noon: Lei demonstrations, plant and book displays.
To register by mail, write to: UH Conference Center, 2530 Dole St., Room C-404, Honolulu, HI 96822.
Separate registration forms are required for each person. Make checks or money orders for conference registration payable to: Native Pathfinders. For more information call the conference center at 956-8204, or fax 956-3364.
The workshops were developed by the Hawai'i-based non-profit group, Native Pathfinders Institute.
Heidi Bornhorst is a sustainable-landscape consultant. Submit questions to islandlife@honoluluadvertiser.com or Island Life, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802. Letters may be published or distributed in print, electronic or other forms.
