My story today is how Na Mala Elima (The Five Gardens) — Limahuli, McBride, Allerton, Kahanu and Kampong — got its start and some of the happenings that I have experienced in my 20 years on the Board of Trustees.
My story today is how Na Mala Elima (The Five Gardens) — Limahuli, McBride, Allerton, Kahanu and Kampong — got its start and some of the happenings that I have experienced in my 20 years on the Board of Trustees.
I am now going to quote from the booklet “The U.S. National Tropical Botanical Garden,” a proposal based on an urgent need. The only snag to the passage of the bill was that one senator, and I think he was from one of the Carolinas, objected to the word “national,” because the garden was going to be in Hawai‘i and not on the continental U.S. soil.
So the name Pacific was proposed and met no objections. The bill was delayed in the House but Sparky Matsunaga pushed for its quick passage. Both houses passed the bill in August 1964 granting this charter.
The Bill called for a charter for the garden with no federal monetary support, although we have to submit an annual audited statement to Congress by the end of June each year. If we don’t, we get a letter from the chairman of the Agriculture Committee asking for it.
With the help of a very generous gift of $1 million by Robert Allerton, 200 acres in Lawa‘i Valley were purchased and the garden was officially dedicated in January 1971.
Dr. William Stewart was hired as the first director. The next director was William Theobald. Now we were into the reign of William II. Bill was with us until his unfortunate stroke in July 1992. Marc Code became the acting head for about a month then Diane Ragone took over the reins and stayed until Dr. William Klein, William III, was appointed director in 1993. Our next director was/is Dr. Paul Alan Cox.
I became a trustee in 1984 and served under three different chairmen. The only active trustees still on the board were Donn Carlsmith, Thomas Hewitt and Douglas Kinney. Helen Thompson is the only member of the board that is still active from the 1984 board. The old members used to joke about the times when money was tight and they passed a hat at the trustees meeting and counted the checks right then and if it wasn’t enough, the hat was passed again. By the time I came on the board this practice was no longer used. Three years ago Tom Urban started a pledge system which will expire after next year. This has proved very successful.
The headquarters buildings were designed by Valimir Ossipoff, a Honolulu architect in the early ‘80s, and were built with the exception of the educational center which came later. The first headquarters was on the Koloa side of the valley. There was no paved road down into the valley, only a dirt road. It was a thrill a minute on wet days driving the van up and down with the visitors on their tours.
One of our trustees, Kay Sweeny left her estate in Florida called the “Kampong” to the garden upon her death. Now we have a piece of land in the continental U.S. so we petitioned Congress for a change from Pacific to National and this time there was no opposition.
In the late 1960s Mrs. Juliet Wichman, my mother, started to build and develop a garden in Limahuli Valley in Ha‘ena. Ha‘ena was originally owned by a group of Hawaiians who formed an organization called a hui, or club.
There were 38 of them so 38 shares were issued and each share was entitled to a proportionate amount of beach land, kula, or inland arable land, and mountain land. Over the years the shares changed hands and in about 1958 or ‘59 John Allerton and Paul Rice wanted a portion of the hui. In 1947, Mother was able to purchase five shares and over the next few years was able to get three more shares. The partition took until 1968 before the final allotments were made.
The commissioners first had to divide the share holders’ rights in as equitable manner as possible. Mother did not have enough beach land so she opted for all the mountain land behind her house and all of Limahuli Valley with the exception of three lots along Limahuli stream and Kuleana up in the valley. One of these three lots has already been purchased by the garden. Now she started her garden.
The Ha‘ena Hui lands are all in a conservation-zoned area, so mother had to get a permit to develop her garden from the state Board of Land and Natural Resources.
The upper Kuleana was owned by a man named Arthur Kinney and he was asked by the commissioners of the partition if he would like a piece of land closer to the beach and road. He declined the offer.
He then sold the land to the Mr. Louis Rego and Dr. Matsunaga, the Kaua‘i member of the DLNR. They tried to sell the lot to mother for an inflated price and she told them no. Somehow Mother could never get a permit to develop a garden. This made her mad so she gifted the lower 13 acres to the NTBG and that’s where it is today. When she died she left the mountain land to her son Charles Wichman. Later he deeded this land to the garden also.
The pre- and post-meeting tours started back in 1986 when Eleanor Bleakie took a group of us to Australia and New Zealand after the fall board meeting. Since then there has always been at least one of these trips a year. The gardens have come a long way and are still growing. The fifth garden, on Maui, is named “Kahanu.”
