HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Windward Oahu’s Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden is too popular for its own good.
And now the city’s wants the public to decide when it should take a day of rest.
Ho’omaluhia means “peaceful refuge” in the Hawaiian language.
But that peace is getting harder to find as the garden’s lush beauty now attracts record crowds.
“From July of 2024 to June 2025, we had 723,495 visitors to Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden,” said Nate Serota of the Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation. “Now that kind of attendance definitely has its impacts on not just the natural environment, but on the amount of maintenance that we can do here.”
Ho’omaluhia Attendance Chart(Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation)
The city’s decided the 43-year-old garden needs a break. One day a week to re-set and let nature breathe.
“Simply put, just like anyone who needs to rejuvenate themselves go take a spa day, the Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden also needs to take a spa day and rejuvenate itself so that it could continue to be the wondrous beauty that it is for both our kamaʻāina as well as visitors,” said Honolulu City Esther Kiaʻāina.
The scheduled rest day will also give the limited staff here – just 9 full-time people – a chance to work without disruptions.
“We cannot get to some of these areas to do the work we need to do with tree contracts, with controlling invasive species, with this amount of people,” said Joshlyn Sand, the director of Honolulu Botanical Gardens. “So, we need to have that closure so that we can effectively and safely get in to do the work that we need to do.”
The garden’s staff picked Tuesday or Thursday as the best choices for a weekly closure.
Both days have a similar visitor count and neither regularly have programs, like camping or arts and crafts.
“And we really wanted to give the public a sense of ownership and a sense of involvement in this decision. So, we’re launching a public survey,” Serota explained.
The poll is available online until 5 p.m. on Wednesday, October 8.
The Department of Parks and Recreation will take the results and begin the closure in 2026.
“It will also provide the residents here, our neighboring Luluku area, they’ve been very patient with the popularity of this botanical garden. It will give them some peace and it will give the ‘āina some peace,” added Sand.
So will it be Tuesday or Thursday?
Vote here to let the city know the day you’d like to see Hoʻomaluhia take a much-needed rest.
Copyright 2025 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
Comments are closed.