In The Garden
Friday, September 21, 2001
The old joke about Maryknoll High School is that there wasn't a single blade of green grass to be found on campus. It was an exaggeration, of course. The private school has a small campus given mostly to concrete structures for classrooms and other school buildings, but it did have a patch of grass and a row of stately royal palms in front of the school. Dreary Maryknoll garden
transformed into
pleasant gathering place"It was kind of dead grass, though. And it had a lot of bugs, so you couldn't really hang out there," said senior Franklin Lee.
That's no longer true. The dead grass is gone, replaced by a small but inviting garden filled with native Hawaiian plants, tables and benches under large outdoor umbrellas, and lush green grass.
The new garden, completed in time for the opening of the fall semester, has been a welcome change at the school. It's become a popular gathering place for students to eat lunch, talk story and do their homework.
"The scenery is a lot nicer, and it's really good for school spirit, too," Lee said. "Before, it was all hot and it was all concrete. Now it's nice and green, and it makes the place a lot more welcoming. It's pretty cool."Secretary Leona Tadaki-Kam said the new garden is equally popular among the school staff. It offers a rest area for staff who wish to take a break outdoors.
"I love the greenery. What I like to do is pick the flowers, although I don't know if I am suppose to do that," Tadaki-Kam said. The young garden has produced Hawaiian and Tahitian gardenias that add a pleasant fragrance to the office, which borders the garden.
Landscape architect Dana Anne Yee said she planned for practicality, aesthetics, cultural significance and fragrance.
"I wanted to make it a space that the students can use, not just a garden that looks good. It's a small school, and there's hardly any place for the students to go. It was like that when I went to the school, and it was like that when my mother went to the school," she said.
Yee's design called for an open lawn with five seating areas under outdoor umbrellas in Maryknoll's gold-and-maroon school colors. The 5,800-square-foot garden has a gentle berm and a border of mock orange hedge, which when matured will soften the noise and automobile exhaust from the nearby H-1 freeway.
An inner border, which follows along the hedge, is planted with plumeria trees, red ginger, heliconia, other shrubs and smaller plants to offer varying heights, textures, colors and fragrances. The mixture of plants provides a second screen from the busy streets, softens the exteriors of the concrete buildings and adds to the aesthetics of the garden.
"The different sizes and colors give it a nice layered effect. It creates a nice backdrop and actually makes the small area look bigger," Yee said. The same idea applies well to a home garden where space is limited, she said.
Yee suggests using taller plants, such as plumeria or fruit trees, for the outside layer and moving to smaller plants, such as flowering shrubs, for the inner layer. Mondo grass and a border of concrete header give the border a finished look and make the maintenance easier.
Native Hawaiian plants offer a nice variety of colors and sizes for the inner border, Yee said. She used mostly native Hawaiian plants for the garden, partly for their beauty and partly for the cultural lessons they offer.
"It's important for the students as well as the faculty to learn about the native plants. What better way to learn about them than to have them growing right at the school?" Yee said.
The garden is an outdoor classroom that helps promote native plants, she said. Yee also designed Maryknoll's new preschool play area, which incorporates gardening with learning and playing.
The play area has three large concrete planter boxes for the students to begin their own gardens. There are also two seating areas that serve as outdoor classrooms. A tricycle path will be completed later.
The play area is shielded from the streets with a chain-link fence and a double row of mock orange. Fruiting trees (breadfruit and star fruit) are planted with hala, puakenikeni, red 'ilima, 'akia, mountain and beach naupaka, white hibiscus and other native Hawaiian plants.
"The kids really notice the different plants. They see the little flower on the puakenikeni tree go from white to yellow. That's thrilling to them," Yee said.
The new garden and play area are part of Maryknoll's master plan to improve the school grounds with more green spaces. Yee has been planning for the improvements for two years, and the two projects were completed during spring and summer breaks.
Gardening Calendar
Suzanne Tswei's gardening column runs Saturdays in Today.
You can write her at the Star-Bulletin,
500 Ala Moana, Suite 7-210, Honolulu, HI, 96813
or email stswei@starbulletin.com
