kauaifinaladdition

[kauaifinaladdition]

Our time is coming to an end. As promised some arboriculture, agriculture and movie stories.

Kauai is called the Garden Isle because random showers are a fact of life. But then 5 minutes later the sun is out.

There are several large swamps at high elevation…… which overflow to create transient waterfalls as seen below.

Visited a new beach this trip.

For the last 20 years, gramma has refused to let me buy a place in Hawaii. But finally relented and let me put an offer on this gem above the beach.

Kauai hosts the National Tropical Botanical Garden, part of which is Allerton Gardens set on 80 oceanfront acres in a secluded river valley. Robert Allerton met a young friend at the University of Illinois in the 1920s, and in the 30s bought existing gardens previously owned by a Hawaiian Queen.

They toured the world collecting trees, plants and flowers such as this Moreton Fig Tree as seen in Jurassic Park and many other movies

They created themed areas with art and engineered novelties as well as beautiful flowers

Hawaiians accepted his adopted “son” 20 years his younger and they were left in peace to live their passions.

When the “son” died in 1987 everything was donated to help create the Nat. Bot. garden

Hawaii is fully of weird stories of imported trees and plants. This Cook Pine was thought to create fortunes with year round fast growing conditions

Problem was…… there are no growth rings so the lumber cannot be used in structures. Oops!!

Sugar cane was the big crop on this island starting in the mid 1800s and peaking in 1900 with 100,000 acres farmed. This industry faded all thru the 1900s and was done by the 1990s.

A big shock to the community but not Hawaiians as they never worked on the Plantations. Chinese, Japanese and other Asians did the hard work. Just 100,000 acres of grasslands now with some remnant buildings

So goodbye to Kauai. Thanks for following along and I will see you all again this August as we visit Paris, the Olympics and the Normandy beaches

Do you see the sailboat?