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Dig This
Friday, July 21, 2000
File photos
Warren and Helen McCord cemented in some of the pools
in a streambed on the Kula Botanical garden site and installed
a pump system to create a 400-foot-long stream
that ends in a koi pond.
ALICE Wagner has lived in hot areas for most of her 77 years, most recently trading Los Angeles for Kula, Maui, nine years ago. Temperate garden,
Maui-styleThe switch in temperature suits her just fine.
"I like this weather," she said on a cool morning this spring, during a conversation that covered the foolishness of single-wall construction in upcountry homes and the cost of a cord of firewood (about $150).
As receptionist at the Kula Botanical Gardens for the past seven years, Wagner is surrounded by fans of a microclimate that is more temperate than tropical.
Cymbidium orchids with their 3-foot sprays keep company with pigtail anthuriums in the orchid house. "We use (the anthuriums) because they bloom a lot and it adds color," said owner Warren McCord, who built the garden with wife Helen 30 years ago.
KULA BOTANICAL GARDENS
Where: Upper Kula Road, a k a Kekaulike Avenue, a k a Highway 377. About 7/10th of a mile from the Kula Highway turnoff. If you miss the turn off, take 377 when it comes back to Kula Highway and the gardens appear quickly.
Warren McCord explained that while the Cymbidium needs cold to flower, other orchid varieties, dendrobium and cattleyas to name two, won't survive the Kula winter. Other anthurium varieties also are averse to the cold. "We are really a temperate garden," he said.
But it is a temperate garden with a distinctly Hawaiian theme, featuring 60 types of protea and many native plants.
Kula Botanical Garden has been a labor of love for the McCords since they broke ground in 1968. A landscape architect, Warren wanted a place to practice his work and show clients mature plants.
And they'd fallen in love with Maui.
"Several of the tour companies said we need a place to stop in Kula," said Warren McCord. They didn't know where Kula was. "This was really out in the country," he said.
They found the land where the garden sits while looking at an adjoining property. Something caught Warren's eye and he hopped the fence.
"I said this is exactly what we want, look at this rock," he said. "I happen to be a rock nut. It was perfect."
The garden's koi pond now fills a basin in front of his rock. It is fed by a 400-foot-long stream. The streambed was there when they bought the property, but ran intermittently. The McCords cemented in the pools, built the pond and installed a pump system to achieve consistent water flow.
African crowned cranes inhabit the slope behind the pond and are among the creatures that make up the garden's small zoo.
Jackson chameleons live in a cage just past the reception area and gift shop and an aviary sits on the hill above the pond.The animals were added over time to appeal to younger visitors.
The garden hosts frequent school tours and McCord wants to build a menehune village. He hopes to raise funds for original sculptures by local artists that would allow him to set a scene of menehune at work and play. "The project may take years to get it done, but ultimately we'll get it done," he said. (For more information on the menehune village project, call (808)-878-1715.)
Admission fees pay the staff of three gardeners and two receptionists. Revenues from the McCords' other business, Monterey pine Christmas trees planted on adjoining land, pay for one major improvement each year.
"The garden has to make some improvement regularly or it would go downhill," said McCord, who estimates he spreads his time pretty evenly, spending about 30 hours a week in the garden and 30 with the Christmas trees.
"I guess I'm crazy, I just love it," said McCord. "I know every plant in the garden. Each one is an individual."
Though the nursery is closed, McCord is always willing to give out cuttings and help people propagate the plants in the garden. "That's how we got started so we have to reciprocate," he said.
Both Wagner and McCord have retired from their careers, yet enjoy putting time in at the garden.
"You don't see people who come to see a garden who are mad or grouchy," said Wagner. "It's just such a wonderful place to work."
Said McCord, "The one comment that just simply makes it worthwhile is some one will come and say 'I could stay here forever, this is the best thing we've done on Maui.' "
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
