HILO — Lesley Hill, farmer, founder and owner of Paradise Plants in Hilo and a leader in Hawaii’s tropical fruit industry, died May 14 at The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu. She was 66.
Born in Virginia and raised in Florida, Hill came to the University of Hawaii at Manoa at age 19 for a six-week summer program and ended up staying. She discovered her love for plants after working at an orchid shop in Honolulu’s Palolo neighborhood.
“I think women are particularly good farmers because they have a natural nurturing capacity. They like to care for things … and caring for the land is the most important thing,” Hill said in a 2011 video with She Grows Food, a website about Hawaii women farmers.
Hill later moved to the Big Island and farmed in Kapoho until damage from a 1975 earthquake forced a move into Hilo, where she opened Paradise Plants in 1978.
She and life partner, Michael Crowell, bought former C. Brewer and Co. sugar land on the Hamakua Coast and started Wailea Agricultural Group, specializing in fresh Hawaiian hearts of palm and specialty fruits and spices.
“They were the first to start commercially growing fresh Hawaiian heart of palm,” Hill’s daughter, Maikalani Hill Higgins, said. “Mostly, before that, it was being canned in Brazil and Costa Rica, which is where they got their peach palms from and started an industry.”
A member of the Hawaii Agricultural Leadership Foundation, Hill traveled extensively in Europe and Asia, and was instrumental in bringing commercial rambutan to Hawaii.
In the 1980s, Paradise Plants sponsored the “Green &Growing” radio show with the late UH botanist Dr. Horace Clay, and went on the air herself, as well. Hill also started the Big Island Association of Nurserymen and was active in many organizations, including Hilo Outdoor Circle and Hilo Community Players.
“She had endless energy. She just wanted to get involved in so many activities, all the time,” Hill Higgins said.
Survivors include Crowell, Hill Higgins, daughters Loke Hill-Higgins and Moani Ruth Crowell, sisters Patricia Blackwell and Pamela Hill, and granddaughter, Aiyana Hill-Higgins.
A celebration of life will be held at a later date.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.