Honolulu botanical garden features a variety of native plants in Oahu. The flowers used to make the lei are exhibited in many botanical gardens at Honolulu. Most of the gardens in Honolulu don’t charge admission fees. There are a few botanical gardens in Honolulu including Foster Botanical Garden, Liliuokalani Botanical Garden, and Hoomaluhia Botanical Garden.
Foster Botanical Garden offers an exhibition of tropical plants from different parts of the world. There are many endangered plants at the botanical garden. You cannot use your hand to pick the growing plant when exploring the Foster Botanical Garden. Foster Botanical Garden has several sections including economic garden, prehistoric glens, and Lyon orchid garden; butterfly garden, main terrace, and middle terrace. In economic garden, you will find herbs, spices and dye plants. In the prehistoric glen, you will find plants from other parts of the world that exist thousands of years ago. In the Lyon Orchid Garden, you can observe a large variety of old world orchid species as well as new world orchid species. The butterfly garden is a habitat to the butterflies in Hawaii. The main terrace is the earliest section built in the garden. The main terrace was built in 1853. The middle terrace features all kinds of plants such as ginger plants, palm trees, and heliconia. In the exceptional trees section, there are 24 trees, which are deemed as exceptional compare to other trees in the garden.
Liliuokalani Botanical Garden is situated to the north of Foster Botanical Garden. Queen Liliuokalani owned a part of the botanical garden in the past. It used to be a favorite picnicking spot of Queen Liliuokalani. She gave her land to the public so that they can enjoy it. Liliuokalani Botanical Garden only exhibits local Hawaiian plants. Visitors can picnic at the garden and enjoy the beautiful scenery of Nuuanu Stream. The Wiaikahalulu Waterfall can also be found in the garden.
Hoomaluhia Botanical Garden was originally built to protect Kaneohe from flood. There are various types of facilities such as Visitor Center, day use area and campground at the garden. The botanical garden is open from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Most of the plants exhibited at Hoomaluhia Botanical Garden are from Philippines, Hawaii and Sri Lanka. You can participate in many programs such as walking tour, hiking, camping and etc. If you want to camp at Hoomaluhia Botanical Garden, be sure to bring your own equipments including cooler, hibachi, fuel, sleeping gear, and flashlights.