A Day at Kula Botanical Gardens

We spent one of our days on Maui exploring the upcountry area. My favorite place was the Kula Botanical Gardens. For several hours we strolled through the lush grounds, taking pictures and reading the names of the tropical plants.

 These huge plants were at the entrance. I'm thinking they might be century plants, but they don't look as spiky as the ones I've seen on the mainland.

 We parked in front of these giant trumpet flowers. The bushes were loaded with them.

We saw this Jackson's Chameleon through the bathroom window. They had another one in a cage, but it was more fun to find it outside, "in the wild".

It's hard to imagine that all of the Jackson's Chameleons in Hawaii originated from a Kane'ohe pet store owner who imported some from Kenya in 1972 to sell in his shop. He let them loose in his back yard and they have since spread to many of the other Hawaiian islands.

The Koi in the pond gathered close to the deck when Larry fed them crackers and cereal.

My favorite tree at Kula Botanical Gardens was this Banksia serrata which is also known as old man banksia.

A section of the trunk appeared to have a face looking out from inside the tree and he wasn't smiling!

The flowers on the old man banksia look something like a white bottle brush.

The banksia speciosa was a smaller tree with interesting flowers and rickrack leaves.

There were some lovebirds and doves in the aviary.

I'd like to know who posed for these woodcarving statues.

This one looks like an alien.

The King Protea has a huge flower.

Golden Protea have a totally different type of flower which illustrates why the proteas were named after the Greek god Proteus who could taken on any shape he wanted.

Proteas are native to South Africa and Australia.

Protea is the national flower of South Africa.

The black Protea has a soft, feathery texture.

You don't see black flowers very often.

These red proteas were swaying high above my head in the breeze. I had to climb up on a rock to get a picture of them.

The black-eyed susans made a nice covering on the trellis.

When I saw this plant, I immediately thought they looked like little rat paws. But, since they are from Australia, they were named Kangaroo's Paw.

One of my favorite trees is the Norfolk Island Pine.

I love the feathery, ferny look of the branches.

I don't know the name of this purple flower...at least, I know it isn't a protea.

Warren and Carolyn McCord started working on creating the Kula Botanical Gardens on January 15th, 1969. Opening day was scheduled for May1st, 1971, on May Day, of course!

This is one of the first post cards of the Kula Botanical Gardens from the 1970's. It certainly has changed.

Another strange and interesting flower that I didn't get the name of.

They had two gazebos in the gardens. People like to use them for weddings.

This succulent had extremely flat, steamrollered-looking leaves.

One last unknown, but pretty blossom.

Needle-felted Sculpture Inspired by the Mountains of West Maui

I started working on this needle-felted sculpture when we were in Maui, mostly while Larry was taking naps between our hikes along the beach. I also took it with me last month when I was at the Fiber in the Forest retreat at Camp Myrtlewood, Oregon.

My sculpture picture of Maui will be one of about 14 other panels that will be displayed together in a group project called "A River Runs Through It". Each person from the Fyber Cafe club in Roseburg, Oregon will make a panel in her own favorite fiber medium, such as quilting, weaving, appliqué, knitting, etc... The panels will be displayed next to each other, with the river running through all of the panels, but they will each depict a different scene.

Along the Road to Hana Maui

We started on the notoriously winding road to Hana early in the morning. The rain began to let up by the time we reached Kaumahina State Wayside.

Kaumahina State Wayside had a bathroom, a lookout and a short trail, allowing us to stretch our feet. We had stopped earlier at The Garden of Eden Botanical Garden, which our guide book said cost $3 admission. It is now $15, cash only. Since we didn't bring that much extra cash, we had to pass.

The Keanae Arboretum was a pleasant, jungle-y place to walk...and IT was free.

The tulip trees are in bloom.

I love the colors of the Painted Eucalyptus tree trunks.

My favorite flower was the Torch Ginger.

These are the more commonly seen, red ginger.

A very nice example of the trunk of a ficus tree.

As we were leaving Keanae Arboretum, I spotted this car which had missed the turn in the road and ended up down by the bank of the river.

 It was probably trying to avoid hitting a pedestrian on this blind, hair-pin turn in the road.

There is a small community in Keanae. They live near the Keanae Peninsula.

While I was running around taking pictures at Keanae Peninsula....

Larry was playing his Native American flute which is made of Cedar.

Larry bought a bamboo Hawaiian nose flute at The Celebration of the Arts Festival at the Ritz Carlton in Kapalua. The Hawaiian nose flute has a beautiful sound, which was made famous by Anthony Natividad.

The other side of the Keanae Peninsula was extremely windy.

The ocean waves pounded the shore.

There was no sand visible on the beach, only intricately shaped lava rocks.

The horses stood with their backs to the wind.

The drive home from Keanae was something of a white-knuckler, as we tried to enjoy the gorgeous scenery and negotiate the sharply winding, narrow roads, all at the same time.

There were no good places to pull over, so these pictures were taken on-the-fly, out the car window.