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Dig This
Friday, May 26, 2000
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Pat Ohta of Pat's Island Delights displays a T-shirt with an
ohai motif, one of a growing number of items in his store
adorned with the image of a native plant.
NATIVE Hawaiian plants seem to have a peculiar effect on people. Spreading the
word: buy nativeTake Pat Ohta, a 1988 graduate of Mid-Pacific Institute who avoided a college education because he claims to dislike school.
Five years ago, Ohta's family opened Pat's Island Delights, a Hawaii-products store, initially in Aloha Tower Marketplace.
"(My family) wanted to do it and I needed a job," said Ohta. "That's just how it started out. It was like an omiyage type store."
Dissatisfied with the location, the family moved the business to Pearl City after completing a six-month lease and began to add clothing and gifts to the store's inventory of food products.
That's when it all started.
"We sell wooden pens, wooden bowls, I wanted to know what those plants look like," said Ohta.
PAT'S ISLAND DELIGHTS
What: Native plant sale
The more he found out, the more he wanted to know. Now Ohta rattles off the Latin and Hawaiian names of native plants with an ease that would impress a trained horticulturalist.
But he doesn't want to go that route. "I don't want to go back to school. I like having this kind of voluntary homework," said Ohta.
And he wants to spread the word.
Two years ago, the store began hosting native plant sales on the last Saturday of most months (they take a break for Christmas or if there is another big event planned at the store).
"We do it because we want to promote (natives and their) use, in the home, in the garden," said Ohta. He didn't want people to have to wait for the bigger plant sales to find natives. "I wanted to try to make it as accessible as I could," he said.
"Everybody is using so many non-native plants and I don't understand why," said Ohta, who heas filled his yard space with natives.
Over the past couple of years Ohta has wound up growing about 150 different species of native plants on his family's property. Favorites include Hedyotis parvula, a low shrub with tiny, unscented white flowers; purple naupaka, or naupaka kuahiwi (Scaevola mollis), a mountain naupaka with fuzzy leaves and white and purple or purple flowers; and Doryopteris deciphens, a fern. "There's always a new favorite," he said.He sells plants from local nurseries as well as those he grows himself.
Different types of plants are sold each month, depending on availability. "We're getting close to having offered 200 different species," said Ohta.
The plant sales have drawn a fan base. "We have people who come every month," he said. And customers looking for something specific don't have to wait for a sale. "People can always come in and special order plants," he said.
Ohta said the store is too small to carry plants on a regular basis, but he would like to do that eventually.
In the meantime, Ohta is expanding his inventory of items that perpetuate the native plant theme. He has been working with vendors to encourage them to use native plant motifs on everything from cards to clothes and etched glass to painted tiles. "Anything to promote native plants," he said. He'd even like to see more food products from native plants, perhaps a native raspberry jam.
Saturday events at Pat's Island Delights also include food sampling and guest experts are often on hand at the plant sales to answer questions on everything from general care to pest control.
Gardening Calendar in Do It Electric!
Stephanie Kendrick's gardening column runs Fridays in Today.
You can write her at the Star-Bulletin, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802
or email skendrick@starbulletin.com
