Allerton Garden
Later on Monday 12/28 we headed to the National Tropical Botanical Garden visitor center which is on the southern shore of the island near the resort town of Poipu. The NTBG is a nonprofit organization that runs multiple gardens in Hawaii and one in Florida. You can take a self-guided tour or a tour led by one of their guides depending on which garden you visit.
On Monday we got to the visitor center in the afternoon. The tours seemed a bit expensive and it was late enough in the day that a guided tour was no longer an option. But I grabbed a brochure and we wandered the small area surrounding the visitor center before leaving.
In the grounds near the visitor center was a palm tree and a sign with a dire warning. Danger makes me curious so I had to take a closer look.
Two days later the marketing powers of the brochure worked their magic and we returned for a guided tour of the Allerton Garden. This is just a few minutes away from the visitor center on the shuttle bus they provide. Here's our bus just inside the actual Allerton Garden property.
Our guide, Nate, was super knowledgeable and a self-proclaimed botanist nerd. He kept spouting off the scientific Latin names of just about every plant we saw. Here he is answering one of many questions that came from the tour's youngest member:
We saw lots of interesting and exotic plants including the imitation bird of paradise on the right
Some of the plants were nice enough to be posed with
One of these exact trees was in a little movie called Jurassic Park
In addition to plants there were also spiders
Lots of soothing water features
And a soothing bamboo Buddha
Statues. The first one seems to get touched a lot. I forget the story about the second one but it was more special and Not To Be Touched.
