May 10^th is National Public Garden Day. In honor of public gardens everywhere the Botanical Garden at University of Hawaii, Hilo (BGUH) has invited the school’s chancellor, Bonnie D. Irwin, to install an endemic Pritchardia beccariana in the palm walk section of their garden.

By attending this tree planting ceremony, we have an opportunity to show the chancellor how much the gardens are loved and how important it is to protect them for future generations.

 Schedule:

2:30 pm     Check-in at the cafeteria breezeway. (Restrooms are available here.)

2:45 pm     Tour begins, we will be dividing into two groups with one group starting at the palm garden while the other explores the cycad garden

3:30 pm     Regroup at the breezeway and switch guides

3:40 pm     Second half of tour begins

4:30 pm     We meet up again and join the Chancellor for the loulu planting event near the palm walk.

BGUH was started by past HIPS president Don Hemmes over 30 years ago.

The garden contains palm trees from around the world: gigantic species from the South Pacific like Pigfetta and Clinostigma, as well as more diminutive genera Licuala from SE Asia and the Chamaedorea of South & Central America. But the garden is celebrated as one of Hawaiʻi’s most complete cycad collections. There are over 120 species from 10 genera and several species that are yet to be named. 45 species of Zamia from Mexico, Central America, and South America can be found nestled within an extensive collection of bromeliads, many of which were developed by world renown grower and hybridizer David Shiigi of Hilo.