Limahuli Gardens

One evening, as we were drinking wine at the sunset spot across the street from our house in Princeville, it started raining.  While the sun was shining.  Instant photo opp!

Limahuli Gardens is about a mile from the end of the road on the north shore, just past Haena.  Like McBryde Gardens on the south shore, it's a branch of the National Tropical Botanical Garden.  I visited in 2012, and returned this time.  These taro terraces were built by the ancient Hawaiians 700 years ago, recently refurbished.  The traditional hale is a 2013 version of the houses the ancients may have lived in.

The garden has several sections.  Each covers plants from a different era.  Native plants, many endemic to Hawaii or even to this section of Kauai, have a garden of their own.  The canoe garden is made up of plants transported to Hawaii by the Polynesians, before Captain Cook came ashore in 1778.  This group included the coconut palm, which is not native to Hawaii!  Many of the prettiest and best known Hawaiian flowers, like this one, were brought here in the 1800s by non-Hawaiian settlers.

The garden has many gorgeous varieties of hibiscus...almost all have grown in Hawaii for less than 200 years.

Bright colors abound.

An especially intricate flower.

Bird of paradise.

This tree has been enterprising enough to send its roots down the rock into the soil below.

Cool leaf!

There are many types of ferns in Hawaii, all with fine symmetry.

This is the only type of palm native to Hawaii.  It had almost disappeared from the wild, and is now being preserved and nurtured in the garden.

More cool leaves.

Primeval landscape above the gardens.  Yes, Jurassic Park was filmed here!

A good look at the modern hale, with Makana looming above to the right.  The ancient Hawaiians used to have fire ceremonies here.  A brave and nimble warrior would carry sticks to the top, light them, and drop them into the updrafts blowing on the mountain, which would carry the fire to the sea nearby (to the right of the pic).

Nene on the Princeville golf course at sunset.