KAILUA-KONA — Four years ago, Alice Mattraw-Sachs and her husband Jackie bought a piece of property in Kona Acres and started a long refurbishing project.
The place had been in bankruptcy for three years. The house was uninhabited and the landscape was filled with debris.
Today, thanks to Jackie’s carpentry expertise, the house has been completely remodeled, counters have been replaced and walls have been removed to open the place up to the outdoor patio, pool and garden. Meanwhile, Alice has been busy installing and maintaining many species of edibles and ornamentals at their new place.
Alice has loved the out of doors since she was young. Growing up in upstate, New York she spent as much time as she could outside and always delighted when her family spent summer vacations at a lakeside cabin.
“Hiking into our summer cabin, I felt like I was Tom Sawyer, living wilderness adventures,” Alice said. “I loved it.”
When her family moved to Santa Barbara, California, 9-year old Alice became focused on weeds and weeding. With orchards everywhere, weeds were ubiquitous and weeding was a way to earn some money. Alice’s mom was willing to pay her kids $1 for every 300 weeds. Not a lucrative endeavor but one Alice truly enjoyed.
As she grew older she left her earthy employment and began a career in the sky as a flight attendant. With frequent layovers in Honolulu, she fell in love with Hawaii — the spiritual energy she felt here and the beautiful aina.
“I knew in my 20s that I wanted to eventually live here but I also knew I had to wait for the right time,” she said.
Continuing to fly for work, she also added to her gardening experience. In Menlo Park, under huge redwoods, she grew tomatoes and kept on weeding. In the garden surrounding the house she rented in Tiburon in 1978, she grew artichokes as well as weeds.
Setting roots in the Aloha State
The right time to move to Hawaii arrived in 2006. Alice had retired from the airlines and was ready to leave her eight-year stint managing a 14-room bed and breakfast in Palo Alto. Jackie was newly retired and wanted a new project. They came to Kona and bought a house on Walua Road, which they proceeded to remodel and built a terraced garden in the steep backyard.
Jackie’s youthful six-year farming adventure in the Colombian jungle along with his construction skills coupled well with Alice’s gardening experiences. These past endeavors helped them build and maintain their new tropical garden.
To learn more along the way, Alice took Kona Outdoor Circle’s Tropical Gardening classes. After a field trip to Margaret Krimm’s garden in Captain Cook, Alice knew she had met her mentor. She and Carolyn Hahn proceeded to spend the next eight years working with Margaret weekly until she died in 2016.
“Those days with Margaret were invaluable lessons in gardening in Hawaii,” Alice remembered. “She was a natural master and a very good teacher.”
Alice reports that after describing a gardening task, Margaret would always say, “You got it?”
She and Carolyn usually did get it.
Building Kona Acres
After almost eight years on Walua Road, Alice and Jackie were ready for another project. Buying the house in Kona Acres meant they could expand. It was a larger house with more land and lots of areas to grow many different plant species.
As she started creating her garden, Alice went through a selection process starting with edibles. She planted fruit trees in an orchard area on the property, then put in flowering plants to add beauty and fragrance. Finally, she selected plants that would grow to provide shade and privacy screening.
Today, she can harvest bananas, avocados, mangoes, lots of citrus, cacao and tamarillo. Mysore raspberry and lilikoi vines also produce delicious fruit.
In raised beds she can grow asparagus, lettuce, and lots of other vegetables and herbs. Flowers and fragrance abound in her garden including the fragrant white hibiscus as well as jasmine, kula gardenia, tiare gardenia and stephanotis. She also maintains a native kou tree, a hedge of oleander, a stand of red torch ginger and several different heleconia, bromeidad and orchid varieties. Her fishtail and foxtail palms have now grown to fill the front and side property perimeters and a few smaller palms, hapu’u ferns and crotons surround an area near her front door that is soon to be another outdoor patio.
Working together on the property, Alice and Jackie refurbished the patio and pool and put in a small putting green to help improve their golf scores. They also cleaned up the stone wall edging their yard which is now a growing area for several tillansia and orchid varieties. In a small planter by the pool, Alice put in an unusual spotted taro variety and Jackie built an outdoor shower stall that Alice decorated with hanging pots of ferns.
Lots of what is in Alice’s garden has been the result of her propagation skills.
Starting with seeds or cuttings, she had been able to grow some unusual tomato and lettuce varieties and experiment with different ground covers that might do well on her dry, sunny slope.
What she can’t grow from seed or cuttings, Alice sometimes finds at local nurseries or the big box stores. She has also found the farmer’s markets, especially the Saturday one in Waimea to be a good source for interesting plants.
Her advice on plant selection is to decide what you want: edibles, ornamentals or both and to consider the maintenance needs of a plant before you buy it. Know how much water it will need, how much fertilizer will it take to keep it healthy and how vulnerable it is to pests or diseases.
“Knowing what a plant will need to thrive in your garden, can help you decide what to plant,” Alice advised.
“You also need to think about the time you have or want to spend in your garden,” she added. “Plants that need little care are well suited to a busy lifestyle. If you are retired and you want to spend lots of hours in your garden, go wild in your selection process.”
Alice’s love for the aina has helped her succeed as a gardener. She still enjoys weeding as a loving and meditative process. She is thoughtful in her plant placement, putting the right plant in the right place and using feng shui principles to help her find the best location. She also avoids mono-cropping and rotates plants in her veggie garden to discourage pests and diseases. If and when problems do occur she uses environmentally friendly remedies to deal with them.
Alice makes daily rounds in her golf cart. During her rounds, she talks to her plants.
“I encourage my plants to do well and give them positive feed back when they do,” she said. “I believe that is part of what keeps me and my plants healthy and happy.”
Lessons learned on Kona gardening
Alice has learned many valuable lessons in her years of gardening in Kona.
One is that you have to build your own soil. Since a lot of Kona’s soil is a’a lava rocks or volcanic ash, composting your food waste along with garden cuttings, seedless weeds and dead leaves can create a great supply of organic matter for your soil. She also has learned that close observation of your plants is a key to success. That way you can find problems early and they can usually be remedied.
Like almost every gardener and farmer I’ve interviewed, Alice knows that having patience is essential to being a happy gardener. Plants grow in their own time, not necessarily as fast as you want. In some cases the rewards of your efforts will take years.
She repeats an old proverb: “You can’t push the river or pull the shoots.”
This reminds her to enjoy the ride while waiting for results. Alice certainly has enjoyed her gardening ride and hopes to stay actively involved in the garden for years to come.
Diana Duff is a plant adviser, educator and consultant living in a dryland forest north of Kailua-Kona.
Gardening Events
Monday: “Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers Monthly Meeting” from 7 to 9 p.m. at West Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers office 81-6393 Mamalahoa Highway in Kealakekua. White wooden building on makai side across from the Department of Transportation yard. Park in front or on the north side. For more information contact Brian Lievens President West Hawaii Chapter at 895-8753 or greenwizard@hawaii.rr.com.
Thursday: “Marketing in Japan” (Streaming live from Oahu) from 9 to 11 a.m. at Hale Iako, 73-970 Makako Bay Drive at NELHA (OTEC) Campus (just south of Kona International Airport). Learn marketing strategies for exporting to Japan. Free. Contact Small Business Development Center in Kona at 333-5000 for more information.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday: “Korean Natural Farming” 12 hours of hands-on instruction in Kealakekua taught by Master Han-Kyu Cho. $95 for 3 days, $25 for Friday only. For more information contact Jason at 808-854-4275.
Saturday: “Work Day at Amy Greenwell Garden” from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Meet at the Garden Visitor Center across from the Manago Hotel in Captain Cook. Volunteers will be able to help with garden maintenance and are invited to bring a brown bag lunch. Water and snacks provided. Call Peter at 323-3318 for more information.
Farmer Direct Markets
Wednesday: “Sunset Farmers Market” 2 to 6 p.m. in the HPM parking lot at 74-5511 Luhia Street in Kailua-Kona (across from Target)
Wednesday &Friday: “Ho’oulu Farmers Market” 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Sheraton Kona Resort &Spa at Keauhou Bay
Friday: “Pure Kona Market” 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Amy Greenwell Garden in Captain Cook
Saturday: “Keauhou Farmers Market” 8 a.m. to noon at Keauhou Shopping Center
“Kamuela Farmer’s Market” from 7 a.m. to noon at Pukalani Stables
“Waimea Town Market” from 7:30 a.m. to noon in front of Parker School
“Waimea Homestead Market” from 7 a.m. to noon at the Waimea Middle and
Elementary School Playground
Sunday: “Pure Kona Green Market” 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. at Amy Greenwell Garden in Captain Cook
Plant Advice Lines Anytime: konamg@ctahr.hawaii.edu Tuesdays &Thursdays: 9 a.m. to noon at UH-CES in Kainaliu – 322-4892
Mon., Tues. &Fri: 9 a.m. to noon at UH CES at Komohana in Hilo 981-5199 or himga@hawaii.edu