Koko Crater Botanical Garden

Next up we're visiting Oahu's Koko Crater Botanical Garden, in suburban Hawai'i Kai east of central Honolulu. I seem to have made a project out of visiting all the tropical plant gardens on the island, which I guess is fine since there really aren't that many of them: Five run by the city-county government, one by the local university, and a handful of other assorted ones. This one is fairly distinctive in that it's located inside the crater of Koko Crater, the steep volcanic cone that looms over Hawai'i Kai. I wasn't really expecting a lot from the place, given a lot of reviews I'd read of it, but I really enjoyed it; it focuses on dry-climate plants from Hawaii and around the world, including some deeply strange plants from Madagascar. Maybe this just isn't what people are expecting to see in Hawaii, but the whole state is a collection of endlessly varying microclimates, from some of the rainiest places on earth to arid desert conditions and high-altitude moonscapes, so it shouldn't be surprising that plants you might associate with Arizona also grow really well here (but maybe not at all a quarter mile away). Don't miss the plumeria grove if the trees are blooming, and remember to bring bug spray; mosquitoes ate me alive while I was here & I didn't realize it until later.

If you look up toward the rim of the crater you might notice tiny specks of people looking down at you. There's a trail up to the top, which I'll cover in the next post since a.) you can't easily get to it from the botanical garden, and b.) I did that trail on a later trip, well after visiting the garden. During the garden visit I had sort of concluded the trail looked insane and I'd probably never attempt it, but a bit later I did it and it was fine, and I hadn't quite gotten around to publishing this post yet so I didn't have any hasty opinions to walk back. I suppose that's one of the rare advantages to my somewhat... slothful approach to getting posts out the door these days. Hey, I take wins where I can find them.