Moani Lundkvist Garden, Leilani Estates, Big Island of Hawaii

[bgl]

Hawaii Island Palm Society (HIPS) had an Ice Cream Social & garden tour in my old garden yesterday, September 28. The garden, now in the expert care of new owners Bob and Andy, has a new name (above). I had just arrived an hour earlier after a 24 hour journey from New Zealand and was fortunate to be able to attend, arriving just as the garden tour was about to begin. First a few random photos of the group.

[bgl]

A grove of 24 Chrysalidocarpus titan, many with inflorescences.

[bgl]

Chrysalidocarpus hankona.

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Lemurophoenix halleuxii with fruit.

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Dictyocaryum lamarckianum, the only survivor after poisonous SO2 gases during the nearby 2018 volcanic eruption killed off half a dozen others. My final photo. Others who were there, feel free to add photos, 🙂

[richnorm]

3 hours ago, bgl said:

Chrysalidocarpus hankona.

Hopefully we can now get a name for this sp!  How are the others doing? cheers R

[bgl]

1 hour ago, richnorm said:

Hopefully we can now get a name for this sp!  How are the others doing? cheers R

And of course we already have a name - see caption! 🙂 And a brief Copy & Paste from IPS journal Palms, vol. 67(2), 2023: "Chrysalidocarpus hankona J.Dransf, Marcus & W.J.Baker sp. nov". Followed by a full description. And all the other palms are doing great, thank you! 

[ASHCVS]

This is an absolutely amazing post of a legendary garden. Thank you so much Bo!

[Hilo Jason]

It was a beautiful day and I have to pinch myself when walking through this incredible garden. Years ago when Bo had a website for this garden I would spend hours looking at it from my computer in California and would dream about growing palms like he had. It’s a privilege to live here now and be able to see it in person. Andy and Bob do such an amazing job keeping this legacy garden going and planting new species as well. 
 

Here are a few pictures that I took:

 

[Hilo Jason]

First time seeing Chrysalidocarpus Nauseosa flowering! one of my favorite palms. 

 

Kentiopsis / Chambeyronia Piersoniorum:

giant Verschafeltii stilt roots with Rick for scale:

 

Huge thank you to Bob and Andy for opening their garden and to Bo for the inspiration to so many of us 

[bgl]

Jason, WOW, lots of great photos! Thanks for sharing! 

Bo-Göran

[palmfriend]

Holy...

When I saw this thread on my phone I had to turn on the pc. These images deserve to be looked at on a large screen...😍

Just beautiful!

Bo and Jason, thank you so much for posting!

 

Lars

 

[sonoranfans]

Its a mind blowing garden in every way!  I know that pictures are very limited in capturing the in person visual experience especially height and depth.   Being immersed is not captured with the one eye view of a camera.  One day it could it be rendered in 8k VR so everyone can get that feeling of being immersed in such a spectacular garden.  Thanks for the Pics Bo!     

[realarch]

OMG, I missed this garden AGAIN! One of these days the schedule will cooperate, and thanks Bo and Jason for the photos. This was the first palm garden I toured after moving here and it certainly set the standard of what could be achieved with vision and hard work. Still looking stellar. 

Incidentally, many of the palms in my garden are the offspring from this one. 

Tim

[Dypsisdean]

Bo (and others) - thanks for the pics. Last time I was there was when the volcano was raging and Leilani was evacuated. At the time, it was uncertain what was going to survive the eruption. 

What a relief to know most all your hard work survived and one of the best palm collections in the world is still intact.

[ellidro]

What a gorgeous garden. Bo was gracious enough to give me a tour of this garden many moons ago when I was first getting into palms. It was impactful to say the least. Anyone get any shots of the leucomalla’s that were lining the driveway?

[bgl]

1 hour ago, ellidro said:

What a gorgeous garden. Bo was gracious enough to give me a tour of this garden many moons ago when I was first getting into palms. It was impactful to say the least. Anyone get any shots of the leucomalla’s that were lining the driveway?

Thank you, and sad to say,  only one leucomalla is still there. The others (three, I think) all went downhill, and tragically, died. No idea why.

[Rick Kelley]

This garden has so much history. This was the first palm garden I visited after moving to the Big Island in 2012. I was blown away that  something like this could be created by private individuals in such a short time.  Years later I joined a small group of fence jumpers for a guerrilla tour a month after the epic 2018 lava eruption stopped. The garden was in shambles. Many months of fallen fronds covering everything.  Severe vog damage.  A dusting of volcanic tephra everywhere.  Plenty of dead trees.  Extremely sad conditions. The tour Saturday gave no hint of that past trauma.  Bob and Andy have poured an incredible amount of work and money into reviving the property.  They somehow managed to get it in shape for the IPS tour two years ago and frequently open the garden to the local palm society.  They are busy with lots of new plantings, particularly a diverse Pritchardia collection.  Anyone planning a trip to Hawaii should contact Bob and Andy to request a private tour.

Jason and Bo provided plenty of great photos, but the problem is how to communicate the size of the palms. The Tahina in particular seemed to be calling out to have someone standing next to it for scale, so here is Bob and his new puppy, also named Tahina.

Same tree with Karolyn Lundkvist in 2016. You would never guess that between the two photos a massive lava flow erupted less than a mile away for three months.