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Community conservation program pairs native plants with forever homes

National Tropical Botanical Garden
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Gov. Josh Green has declared 2025 the year of our community forests. In a nod to this, The Conversation highlighted a program started at the National Tropical Botanical Garden that helps center communities in conservation.

Grow Aloha pairs native plants with their forever homes. The program started last year to mark the 60th anniversary of NTBG. We recently visited Kauaʻi to learn about it.

"We actually call them plant adoptions. Adopters fill out an adoption paper," NTBG Communications Director David Bryant said. "The idea is we really want to see our backyards and our landscape start to really reflect Hawaiʻi, start to really showcase the real Hawaiʻi through the native plants and, of course, through the crops that are so intrinsic to Hawaiian culture and to honestly food security and sustainability on the islands."

Every month there is a new native plant that kamaʻāina can adopt for free. Species have included ʻilima, native hibiscuses, ʻōhiʻa, loulu palms, ʻulu and more.

"All the plants that we give away through NTBG are grown in our nursery, and we distribute them at our gardens on Kauaʻi and our Kahanu Garden on Maui. The heritage crops we offer are cultivars that we grow in our garden as well. So it's a really neat way to connect the garden and the plants that we grow here with our community," he said.

The program has held events on Kauaʻi, Maui and Molokaʻi. It hopes to expand to other islands in 2025. In fact, Bishop Museum on Oʻahu and the Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden on Hawaiʻi Island are joining the program this week.

Through the adoption program, the native plants are registered and entered into NTBG's tracking system.

"We stay in touch with adopters periodically. We'll just send very, very occasional surveys to just see how the plants are doing. And no shame if a plant passes away, come and get another one. But we do track where the plants are going just to see the impact that we all are collectively making towards native plants and crops in our in our built environment," Bryant said.

He shared that the program hopes to help people see the value and the cultural significance of native plants.

"I also think about how precious like every square inch of ʻāina is — the places we live are just as important ecologically and culturally as places farther afield. I think about Grow Aloha as a way for us to tend those connections in the places that we live," Bryant told HPR.


This interview aired on The Conversation on Jan. 13, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. 

Catherine Cruz is the host of The Conversation. Contact her at ccruz@hawaiipublicradio.org.
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