The Garden Club of Honolulu first sprouted back in 1930, and for over nine decades its members have brought beautiful floral displays to the islands.
Now, for the first time in the club’s history, it will welcome its first male member, Robbie Lee.
Lee is a floral designer whose mother was involved with the Garden Club as a flower judge. He joined HPR alongside outgoing president Sharon Williams and incoming president Nancy Shaw to talk about their love for flowers.
“Robbie's a first for us because he's so spectacular. We just could not pass him by,” Williams told HPR.
The Garden Club of Honolulu is a member club of the Garden Club of America, which already has several male members, she clarified.
“They're all extremely talented, and they have to pass that whole, you know, thing about being genuine and being in support of making the planet a better place.”
Lee shared with HPR how happy he was to be joining their ranks.
“It's definitely an honor. I'm excited to join the club and just be a part of this community of people that just love gardening and floral design and photography, and so I'm excited,” he said.
“Being, I think, an art history major, it really forced me to look at how important the visuals are, and looking at how that gives people sort of a sensory feeling of happiness or joy,” he told HPR.
“And so for me, flowers, especially because I'm more interested in floral design, it's one way of just making somebody happy or bringing a smile to their face and just kind of enjoying what's around them.”
Shaw shared more about their latest flower show and what’s on the horizon as the club approaches its 100th anniversary.
“We're really focusing on our natives because they need not only for the plants themselves, but for our whole environment, we need to protect our natives.”
For her, preserving the natural beauty of Hawaiʻi’s native plants takes priority over prettiness.
“I heard comments about that from people that, ‘oh, the flower show wasn't as showy,’ but I think it's because we were focused on the natives, and I think that's something that we're going to continue to work on is promoting our native plants.”
The Garden Club of Honolulu is scheduled to hold its next flower show in 2029, and it will be celebrating its centennial in 2030.
This story aired on The Conversation on Aug. 25, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
