KAILUA — The Garden Club of America knew a program it funded in Kailua was helping to rehabilitate inmates at the Women's Community Correctional Center. But it wasn't until the group's national president visited here that she fully appreciated the significance of what's happening.

Mary Jo Garre spent the day talking with inmates last week and came away as impressed with them as she was the lo'i system and lei garden that had once been a field of weeds and koa haole.

Garre said the project, funded about three years ago, is remarkable and goes beyond anything the club has done before.

"Very often an area in a town will become a teaching nature center or a healing garden near a hospital," Garre said. "This is incredibly unique and it takes the cooperation of the garden club and the staff here."

Inside the prison, programs that touch the heart of nature are helping inmates change their perspective and giving them hope.

Among the programs are those sponsored by The Garden Club of Honolulu and the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle that made it possible for the women to grow food to eat and plants to sell as they learn skills that can lead to a new life outside prison.

The Garden Club of Honolulu submitted its project for an annual Founders Fund Award worth $25,000 to build taro lo'i and a lei garden on several acres of unused land between buildings at the Kailua prison. Then, once a month, the women from the club help with the gardening, training inmates to grow plants.

On another day, club members will bring donated flowers and teach the women to make arraignments that are given away to such places as local hospitals.

Garre was also impressed with the inmates, whom she said could pass as college students. The women greeted members of the tour with chant and explained what they were doing.

An award-winning flower arranger, Garre also conducted a flower arrangement class for 13 women, telling them not to fuss about the rules and just make something pretty.

Warden Mark Patterson said the lo'i, lei garden and hydroponic nursery, made possible by the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle, are part of two rehabilitation programs that he hopes to expand so he can get the women outside more. He'd like to increase the number of lo'i, build a hula mound and improve the area so children can come to visit their mothers.

"I'm getting them to think that there's more to treatment than four walls," Patterson said, adding that he wants it to be a place where counseling happens, for meditation and reflection.

The programs offer the wo- men a sense of freedom and open their minds to possibilities, said inmate Charmaine Heanu, 52. Behind the wall life is stifling, Heanu said after a flower-arranging class.

"Flowers bring a spirit in you," she said. "On this side of the wall you kinda lose that spirit. With things like (flower arranging classes), it brings you alive again. Because plants are created by God, this brings you inner peace."

Other inmates expressed similar appreciation for the garden and flower-arranging classes. They said they love the outdoors, the peace of mind they feel while working outside, bringing plants to life and seeing the transformation in one another.

"It's like us, we did things wrong in society but we're able to give back now," said Tricia Maae, 31.