My #WednesdayWalk to Elehoa Peace Park Community Garden - Seaview, Lower Puna, Far East Big Island, Hawai'i - July 13, 2022

Warm greetings all! 🙏 💚

Seaview, the Lower Puna jungly residential community where I live, is quite an amazing place. I keep discovering new cool things about it seemingly almost every week, the longer I live here. In previous posts I've talked about the three beautiful parks that are found here, all of which are short walks from where I live.

This week for my #WednesdayWalk, I chose to go find (I hadn't been there yet, so I had to get directions) and visit a very nearby community garden that just came into my awareness. In the neighborhood it's usually just called the Peace Park, but it's full name is the Elehoa Peace Park, and it turned out to be a super short walk (two streets away) to get there.

When I first arrived, I thought that the first area behind the sign was the whole of the garden, and I was a bit sad that it wasn't larger. Then as I explored further, I discovered that there was an entire other quite large section of it on the other side of a house that was under construction. I don't know yet if this new building is part of the community garden, or whether it's a private home. I'll inquire another time. In any case, I spent almost an hour here waking around exploring and taking photos.

It's been raining on and off all day here in Seaview, and that trend continued during my walk. It was sunny when I left home to go find the garden, and yet pretty much as soon as I arrived it began raining again, and continued for my whole time there. So most of these photos were taken in the rain, from under an unbrella. It wasn't the most ideal time for a walk or photo taking, but that's what presented itself, so I went with it.

This is the first portion of the garden that I saw as I arrived. I could see lots of love and labor in various parts of the garden. I also noticed that many of the plants needed a bit of love, care, and possibly transplanting. If it's a community garden, then I'd love to not only help out in its care and maintenance, but I also have a great many plants that I could contribute and plant. It is a mix of ornamental species, food plants, as well as medicinals. The soil on this side of the garden was quite thin and rocky, so there were several plants that were not too happy.

There were wooden painted planting beds with legs all over the place. Some had soil and plant in them, and some were empty, awaiting future use.

This is a tree that I really didn't expect to see growing in a garden in lowland Hawai'i. It's a spineless honey locust - Gleditsia triacanthos var. inermis, a temperate deciduous tree native to the Eastern portion of the
US mainland. This tree looked a little sad, languishing in the shade of bamboo and other trees (they want full sun). So surprising to see!

There were several breadfruit trees - Artocarpus altilis like this one scattered about the garden. Some, like this one, were already producing fruit.

This is a slightly chlorotic young Brazilian cherry - Eugenia brasilensis.

There are several tree Euphorbia in the garden. I'm not sure which species this is yet. Possibly Euphorbia lactis.

This is a young star fruit - Averrhoa carambola that has flowers, soon to be fruit.

This is the other, larger, side of the garden. This side has the sign with the garden's name. This side seems to have much better soil, so the plants were generally healthier and happier.

Some Swiss chard in one of the painted wooden stilted planting beds.

Sugar cane and another breadfruit tree.

Pineapple and papaya.

Corn is another plant that I don't see out here very often, as it doesn't tend to grow well usually. I'm curious to see if these will mature and produce cobs.

This is a purple lirikoi/passion flower/fruit vine - Passiflora edulis growing over a fallen trellis. There was a giant lirikoi - Passiflora quadrangularis growing next to it on the ground. Yes, this garden needs some love.

That brings me to the end of this #WednesdayWalk for this week! I would have likely stayed longer if it were not raining so profusely. I hope y'all enjoyed the tour of this very local Seaview community garden! I'll likely return soon to see if I might be able to assist in the garden, and maybe to bring interesting plants to put in the ground! Finding this community garden definitely put a big smile on my face! 😁😊

Thank you all so much for allowing me to share more of the beauty and magic from my life and my world with you, and for your continuous appreciation and support! I am deeply grateful! 🙏 💚

Image created by @doze.