Foster Botanical Garden Today
Today the garden consists of the Upper Terrace (the oldest part of the garden); Middle Terraces (palms, aroids, heliconias, gingers); Economic Garden (herbs, spices, dyes, poisons); Prehistoric Glen (primitive plants planted in 1965); Lyon Orchid Garden; and Hybrid Orchid Display. It also contains a number of exceptional trees, including a Sacred Fig which is a clone descendant of the Bodhi tree that Buddha sat under for inspiration, a sapling of which was gifted to Mary Foster by Anagarika Dharmapala in 1913. All told, it contains 25 of about 100 Oahu trees designated as exceptional.
The garden also contains several memorials and sculptures:
- A small replica of the Daibutsu of Kamakura commemorates 100 years of Japanese immigration to Hawaii
- A memorial stone on the site of the first Japanese language school on Oahu, where an anti-aircraft shell exploded into an auditorium full of children during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
- The 1977 abstract ceramic sculpture 'Sandwich Isle' by artist Bob Flint
- The 1974 sculpture Tree by Charles W. Watson
The Garden is the inspiration for a line in Joni Mitchell's 1970 folk song "Big Yellow Taxi": "Took all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum / Then charge people a dollar and a half just to see 'em.". As of 2011, the current admission price for visitors to Hawaii is $5.
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Famous quotes containing the words foster, botanical, garden and/or today:
“Sadly I roam,
Still longing for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home.”
—Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1884)
“Evolution was all over my chldhood, walks abroad with an evolutionist and the world was full of evolution, biological and botanical evolution.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“These are thy wonders, Lord of love,
To make us see we are but flowers that glide.
Which when we once can finde and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us where to bide.”
—George Herbert (1593–1633)
“How many things served us but yesterday as articles of faith, which today we deem but fables?”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)