Imagine a trip back to pre-contact Hawaii, before Captain Cook arrived at Kealakekua Bay in 1779. This was a time of great abundance, prosperity, and population in the Kona area of the Big Island. A vast network of gardens and groves stretched from the seacoast to the mountain forests. Known as the Kona Field System, it is one of the world's great agricultural complexes, and The Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden is located in the center of this once flourishing system.
The 15-acre Garden is landscaped to reflect the plant life in the Kona area before foreign contact. Preserved in the back five acres of the property are extensive stonework remnants of the Kona Field System.
The unique focus of the garden is Hawaiian ethnobotany. It is the only garden in Hawaii solely devoted to this discipline that combines the study of human culture with the plants that support it.
The Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden is open from dawn to dusk daily. Guided and self-guided tours are available. The Garden is 12 miles south of Kailua-Kona, on the Mamalahoa Hwy. just south of the 110 mile marker. Just when you think you've missed it, the warrior marker will appear on the mauka (mountain) side of the road, and soon thereafter are the rather small signs pointing to the narrow shaded driveway heading mauka to the garden.
