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Holy Family Catholic Academy Creates Native Hawaiian School Garden

November 20, 2020

From Suzanne Carlos, Development Coordinator
Holy Family Catholic Academy and Early Learning Center

It was just over a year ago that Holy Family Catholic Academy (HFCA) threw a big Garden Party to build, prepare and plant their brand new HFCA School Garden. Last school year HFCA students planted, nurtured and harvested a wide variety of edibles--many herbs and lots of yummy, healthy vegetables.

This school year, due to social distancing measures, HFCA transformed their School Garden into a Native Hawaiian Garden.

On November 19th, students cleared out the eight (8) garden beds, prepped and enriched the soil, and planted ti leaf stalks, kupukupu fern and plumeria trees.  The garden will be beautiful to look at and low maintenance to care for.  Student volunteers came to work in the garden in groups of six or less, on a staggered schedule, to ensure that they remained safely distanced.

HFCA invited all students, faculty & staff to donate ti leaves for their Native Hawaiian Garden.  On planting day, students in grades 3 - 8 planted all types of ti leaves--red, green, variegated, and all size leaves from small to large.  A total of almost 100 ti leaf stalks were planted.   Students planted three plumeria trees that were donated by the school community, as well as over 50 kupukupu fern plants that were generously provided for by HFCA's PTG.  The kupukupu fern provided instant beauty to the Native Hawaiian School Garden.  Moreover it is very low maintenance, great for lei-making and will prevent weeds from coming up once they fill in the garden beds.   Once all the garden beds were planted and lovingly watered, the students scrubbed the garden tools clean so they'd be ready for the next time.  HFCA thanks their school community for their generous support of their Native Hawaiian School Garden and looks forward to watching their garden grow!