This Fantastic Pendant Heliconia, Heliconia colgantea R.R. Sm. ex G.S. Daniels & F.G. Stiles, blooms late in the year, November and December. This year it has been more prolific than ever, producing plenty bright pink bracts and setting plenty of seeds.

This Heliconia is native to lowlands of Costa Rica and Panama.

See more at our Plant Database

Paul Lucas and Garden Co-Founder Pauline Lutkenhouse after the installation of our solar power system.

The Garden is pleased to announce that we have recently installed a photovoltaic system for our Visitor’s Center. Our 60 solar panels will generate about 50 KW per day, greatly reducing our energy costs and carbon footprint.

The System was installed by Solar Engineering & Contracting based in Kauai.   Owner and operator Paul Lucas was here to oversee his well trained and professional staff, which had the system up and running in two days.

Solar Engineering & Contracting has been promoting Solar Water & Solar Power Systems in Hawaii and the South Pacific since 1982 and has installed over 7,000 solar systems including some of the largest solar projects in the islands.

We are grateful to Paul for an outstanding job here and also for his life’s work of promoting solar energy.

Thank you Paul and everyone at Solar Engineering & Contracting.

The presentation will be at UH-Hilo, UCB 115 at 7 p.m. Friday, June 10.

Sculptor Rocky Vargas and Ku

In Early February, local artist and sculptor Rocky Vargas began carving a new image of the Hawaiian God Ku from the trunk of a large Monkeypod tree. This new carving was needed to replace the old statue of Ku that he had made for HTBG over ten years ago. The old carving was not entirely hardwood and had begun to rot.

The new carving is all hardwood and will withstand the elements for decades to come.

Carved wooden figures in human form are important remnants of the Hawaiian Religious System and the Garden is proud to have such a fine example to share with the public.

Mahalo to Rocky for months of hard work in creating this wonderful art!

Read more about Rocky here

This tiny Phalaenopsis has flowers about 2 cm across and has short stems with very long flattened fleshy roots. It was discovered by Rev. Samuel Parish, an orchid collector, in 1864. It is found growing in forests on mossy trees in the Himalayas, Assam India, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.