Wahiawa Botanical Garden

The Wahiawa Botanical Garden is less than 10 minutes from Matt’s place. He didn’t even know it was there. I found it because of the big blue signs that said “Botanical Garden -->”. Go figure. Wahiawa is one of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens. There are five different botanical garden sites around Oahu. In the 1920's, the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association leased the land from the State of Hawaii as a site for experimental tree planting. Most of the large trees still growing in Wahiawa date from that decade. The property was transferred to the city and County of Honolulu in 1950 and was opened as a botanical garden in 1957. Wahiawa is a 27 acre garden on a high elevation plateau with a tropical rain forest environment. Most of the garden is actually located within a ravine that is 47 feet deep. I spent a happy two hours meandering through the garden, and could have easily spent another two. Matt stayed home and watched ESPN.