Fairchild Challenge coming to the Keys via Kona Kai BG

Educating the next generation about the importance of plants and our natural environment to the well-being of humanity is crucial.  Through our interactions with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, FL, we learned of the Fairchild Challenge and its devotion to this type of work (more information on the Challenge can be found here).  Although the program impacts tens of thousands of students in South Florida and throughout the world, it has not yet made successful inroads to schools in the Florida Keys.  When we discovered this, we thought it would be great to find a way to make this happen, so we became a Fairchild Challenge 'satellite partner.'  After some research and discussion, we found a perfect project to start with: the 2011/2012 Plant Champions Olympic Wreath Global Competition, the result of a collaboration between Fairchild and Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI).  Essentially, teachers work with students to create wreaths inspired by the Olympics made out of plants characteristic of our region (preferably natives).  Students also write an essay explaining their plant choices, including a conservation message applicable to one of the plants.  Pictures are taken of students wearing the finished wreaths; the wreaths and essays are then judged by a panel at The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai, with the top 5 winning pictures/essays from Keys schools sent off to London to be displayed at the 2012 Olympic Games - pretty cool!  Instead of going into all the details in this post, you can find more information on BGCI's website.  Here are a couple nice examples BGCI gives of plant wreaths:

After seeing these wreaths, I felt inspired to spend some serious time making one myself.  For inspiration, I delved deep into Olympic wreath history, explored and wrestled with wreath philosophy, schooled myself on the artistic principles and thought of some of the greatest artists in history, and agonized over plant choices for my wreath.  After several sleepless nights and hours of work, I finally finished my masterpiece:

I decided on the native Hamelia patens (firebush) as the sole plant in my wreath, drawing my artistic influence from 16th century abstract minimalism.  Given this, it is understandable that it might be a little tough to recognize and appreciate the sheer beauty and complexity of this masterpiece, but for those who can recognize and appreciate it, before you get all upset, I want to assuage your fears: I will NOT be including my wreath as an entry to take all of the awards in this competition away from everybody else.  As an ethnobotanist and amateur artist/philosopher, I clearly have many unfair advantages, and I know deep down it just wouldn't be right.

Ok ok, for serious now - since class participation in the Competition is up to individual teachers, we collaborated with Bobbi Burson, a teacher at Key Largo Middle School who has a passion for educating her students about the importance of plants and nature in general, to bring together a group of teachers interested in participating.  Several teachers responded with interest, and after our initial organizational meeting in which we discussed details of the Competition and how it can be integrated into various curricula, we are all set to begin.  When teachers are ready to begin work in their classes, I will travel to the middle school to introduce the Competition to each class to get them psyched up and excited about it, which I have heard might be a little challenging, especially when it comes to the guys in each class...it might be analogous to getting girls excited about doing a project about sports cars and weapons (a generalization, but you know what I mean).  Submissions will be made to Kona Kai by participating classes no later than January 20, 2012, so look forward to a post early next year with some great pictures of what the students come up with.


Rick 'Wreath' Hederstrom
Associate Director

Photos From New Camera, Florida Keys Birding & Wildlife Festival

Starting this past Thursday, I've been dedicating a tour per day 'til Sunday the 25th to registrants of the Florida Keys Birding & Wildlife Festival, which means six tours (including the two for guests) in four days!  The tour is listed as one of many activities of interest to naturalists in a schedule that involves numerous walks, talks and tours taking place throughout the Keys.  Needless to say, I've stocked up on Gatorade and all those hours in the gym are paying off as I near the half-way mark of this mini-marathon of tours.  Ok, so it's not THAT bad, and in fact, it is quite enjoyable for me to be able to educate so many people about the importance and value of plants.  Specially for the Festival, I spent some time brushing up on avianbotany, a little-known field akin to ethnobotany that hasn't really...taken off (cue half-hearted laughter).  In all seriousness though, I did some research on our collections and tried to find out any connections our plants might have with birds and other wildlife so that I could present them to anyone registering for the tour through the Festival.  I was able to come to a greater appreciation about how not only humans, but all animals, depend on plant life for their survival.  Birds and squirrels use plants as a source of food and nest material, insects use plants as homes and for food, and lizards use plants for cover and apparently for enjoyment as props for parkour runs, as they are always bounding acrobatically across the landscape.

The Botanic Gardens recently made the exciting purchase of a new digital camera that has more features and takes higher quality images than our point-and-shoot, so I thought I'd show off some of the sights this week's tour participants are seeing in our gardens through this new lens.  My skill as a photographer needs quite a bit of work before I can produce some truly high-quality photos that will hopefully allow me to effectively capture and present the beauty and complexity of plants, but everyone's got to start somewhere!

Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) was used in this bird's nest and has now begun to grow down the silver buttonwood (Conocarpus erectus var. sericeus) in which it was built.

Ants (bottom-right corner) have made a home in the trunk of an old gumbo-limbo (Bursera simaruba).

A brown anole atop a leaf of one of our pineapple (Ananas sp.) plants keeps watch or, more likely, scopes out his/her next parkour sequence.

Bromeliad inflorescences (left) and the unmistakable flowers of the royal poinciana (Delonix regia).

So ends another picture-perfect day at Kona Kai...

Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

Wedding Recap, Project Updates and Cork

Finally back at Kona Kai and getting settled in after a great time in Ohio.  The wedding was excellent and much to my relief, the music seemed to be a big hit with everyone.  Admittedly I was a little nervous before starting, but once things got going, I found it easy to get to work making sure everyone had an unforgettable night.  As promised, I have a couple preliminary pictures for you; the ones from the photographers won't be available for another four weeks or so and I didn't want to disappoint on the tantalizing end of my previous post...

First a picture of my setup, which was pretty basic: a laptop with a mixer hooked up via USB, a couple disco balls, two QSC K10 speakers with a KSUB to the right of the table providing the thump, and of course a tree in my corner.  The speakers don't look like much, but they sure can fill a hall really well when it's time to get your dance on.  Annnd here's a shot of the Ethnobotanist-DJ in action, singing/rocking out with the dance floor:

Almost as excited as I get about plants and ethnobotany, but not quite.  So if you see me start air-guitaring in front of a plant I've never seen bloom before, you'll know why.  Ok, getting back to the Gardens...we're finally finishing up the immense project of connecting the Resort to the new Keys sewer system.  Even though it's taken a little longer than expected, we have been fortunate in encountering no major botanical crises along the way and the grounds including nearly all of the plants appear miraculously untouched.  Credit to Veronika and Joe for this, as I'm sure they were driving contractors a little nuts with panicked botanical warnings like "Mind the Bambusa vulgaris 'Wamin Striata'!" and "I better not see a scratch on that Hyophorbe verschaffeltii!" and "Ah!! Don't step on the Cycas panzhihuaensis!" etc.  If you'd like to see a glimpse of what the project involved over the past few weeks, take a look at the "Installing sewer lines at Kona Kai - August 2011" photo album, posted on our Facebook wall.

In other news, we received our second batch of 50 display labels from Nameplate & Panel Technology, who do a great job when it comes to producing display labels for plants.  Their materials and printing combined with Ronnie's graphic design expertise have created some of the best display labels I've seen at any botanical institution.  You might say I'm biased so I challenge - no, I double-dare you to come see for yourself this winter.  Yes, a double-dare is legally binding, so if you are reading this, I'll be expecting to see your smiling face here at Kona Kai in the next several months - I promise you won't be disappointed.  Veronika and I will be placing these labels in the coming weeks, so look forward to learning much more during your stay!

Joe, our Gardens Director, sent me a link to a great ethnobotanical story about why natural cork is still the best topper for wine bottles to keep wine tasting great over the years.  It's neat to explore the reasons why, despite our technological advances, products made from plants are many times still the very best quality products one can buy and this article is a good example of that.  Although it's not mentioned in the article, most of our natural cork is sustainably harvested bark from Quercus suber, the cork oak.  If you have some time, surf the Web to find more information about this plant and the production/usefulness of its cork and I know you'll find some great 'gee-whiz' facts that you'll want to share, so feel free to post any you find especially interesting as a comment below!  It also seems like the plant would enjoy our climate, so I'll be keeping it in mind if we ever have a spot open up...Kona Kai Resort, Gallery, Botanic Gardens & Wine Co.???


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

Labels, Weddings And, Of Course, Ethnobotany

Hi all - starting Monday, I'll be heading back to Ohio for a couple weeks for my sister's wedding, which is very exciting.  Even more so because the gentleman she is marrying is one of my best friends, and I am also honored to be the DJ of the reception.  You're probably thinking, "an ethnobotanist-DJ...a strange but potentially explosive combination."  I know right?  There may be several ethnobotanists in the world and countless DJs, but I just may be the very first and only ethnobotanist-DJ in the entire history of the universe.  I'll give you some time to push up your jaw, which has no doubt dropped significantly after the previous statement.  Ok?  Good.  Obviously, I have made sure that only ethnobotanically interesting flowers will be used in the ceremony/reception, all of which will of course have appropriate labels (yes, even the bride's bouquet will contain a large-sized ethnobotanical label) and if anyone thinks they are going to sneak in with a flower in their hair unlabeled, they are mistaken, as I will have a labeling machine on-site to take care of that.  In addition, I have remixed each song in my set to include some botanical reference, as you can probably guess ethnobotany is not a major theme in love songs or dance music.....yet.

In other news, I thought I'd leave you with a few updates on some exciting progress here at the Gardens to tide you over until I return:

We have ordered 50 more labels (20 of which are the large ethnobotanical labels) for the grounds, so there will soon be lots more for guests and visitors to learn as they enjoy the gardens.

We are also just about ready to order small records labels (aluminum labels that include the accession number + qualifier, scientific name, and source) for each of the plants on the grounds as well.  These labels are like dog tags for plants, which serve to identify them as a specific individual or mass of individuals planted together, and they are more hidden from public view than display labels.  This is because these tags help staff at gardens keep track of their plants and the accession number + qualifier provides the key to unlocking all the information associated with that specific planting in our database, which is a use more internal than public.  So that you can get an idea of what I'm talking about, here is an example of a slightly more detailed records label used at The Holden Arboretum, where I previously worked in the Plant Records office:

Plans are also underway for gradually making the gardens in our center courtyard area native-themed, so I've been researching ethnobotanically interesting native plants that would do well in these areas.  I have found a number of plants that would be great to have, but the challenge is proving to be tracking them down.  If you visit this winter, hopefully you'll be seeing some of the first fruits of that labor.

To make up for the lack of exciting pictures in this post, perhaps I'll include a picture of the ethnobotanist-DJ in action in the first post I make after returning...

Until then!


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

A Tour Through Our Gardens, But Not A Garden Tour

Over the past several months, among other things, I've been spending time honing the tour of our Gardens that we offer to guests and the public three times each week.  I described in an earlier post about how I was encouraged by the enthusiastic responses from those who agreed to a tour.  I'm very happy to say that responses and feedback from tour participants continue to be extremely positive.  No doubt one of the major reasons for this is because I've especially been working on my technique when it comes to pointing out bromeliad flowers, so that it's pretty much flawless by now.  Here's a rare look at the technique in action during a tour, though a photo doesn't do it justice:

Now you might say, "Rick, no offense meant to you at all because I know just how ridiculously awesome you are (aw shucks : P ) but people on the tour might just be saying that they loved it, especially if they're talking directly to you...I mean they're not just going to tell you straight up that it was boring."  Good point, friend.  I acknowledge that feedback given directly to me may or may not be genuine, but after almost every tour Tracey and Denise, who work at the front desk, are able to corroborate.  Now even if you might be skeptical about that, the most objective evidence of enjoyment I can offer is that I will sometimes reach the hour and a half we have allotted for the tour without covering everything, so I'll inform them of the time and ask if they'd like to keep going, and unless they have activities scheduled, the answer has always been an enthusiastic "yes."  Keep in mind, too, that this is precious vacation time and I am competing with some pretty impressive offerings, such as relaxing on the beach, cooling off in the pool, swimming with dolphins, going snorkeling/diving/fishing, yodeling on the pier (or is that just me?), etc.  The fact that these folks end up being happy to spend more than an hour and a half of that precious time with me on our tour is quite wonderful to see and a concrete affirmation that people are really getting a lot out of it.  Both the front desk and I have collected quotes from our tour participants, so you can get an idea of what people are saying:

"I've stayed at Kona Kai in the past and the Gardens and Tour are why we'll be staying here in the future."
"Well beyond any of our expectations."
"I'll never look at plants the same way again."
"My wife had to drag me along but now I'm really glad she did."
"This was a major highlight of our vacation."

If I had any negative feedback, I would present it, but honestly I don't.  And while the original tour focused almost exclusively on ethnobotany and economic botany, it has evolved to incorporate a number of other areas including history of the Keys and the Resort property, botany at microscopic levels, chemistry, ecology, spirituality, ethics, conservation, biodiversity and global environmental issues.  After the tour, we not only hope that participants will leave with a dramatically new perspective on plants, but also how intricately and actively connected they are with the rest of the world, humans in particular.  That being said, this is much more than what one might call a "garden" tour and I think I've found a better name for it that is much more intriguing and descriptive: a "plants-and-people-but-also-much-more-including-history-chemistry-ethics-conservation-connection-spirituality-biodiversity-environmental-issues-etc.,-and-you'll-learn-so-much-and-be-really-glad-you-took-the-time-because-it-is-ridiculously-mind-blowingly-amazing" tour.....well, maybe I'll see if I can cut out a word or two.


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

A Momentous Occasion

Earlier this week we had a momentous occasion with the harvesting of a ripe pineapple from our Pineapple Welcome Garden located immediately to your right as you walk across Kona Kai's entrance footbridge.  Given that it takes about twenty months from planting for a pineapple crown (the top "leafy" part of a pineapple) to grow and produce a ripe fruit, it is an occurrence worthy of celebration: a parade, piñatas, lengthy speeches, a ribbon cutting, cakes with candles, face-painting, fireworks, and clowns making pineapple-shaped balloons are all things I will be considering for the next time a pineapple ripens.

These days, we (or at least I) take for granted that I can walk into almost any supermarket in the U.S. and take home a pineapple to enjoy.  In the recent past, however, the pineapple was a great delicacy.  It was discovered growing in the Caribbean by the Spanish in 1493 and Columbus brought one of the fruits back to Spain.  Because of pineapple's delicious and sugary taste as well as the difficulty in transporting the fruit from the Caribbean to Europe without it rotting, it became a gift highly prized in Europe, even by the monarchs.  As colonists established in the New World, the pineapple retained its prestige on our shores because it was still very difficult and expensive to acquire a pineapple from the Caribbean for a dinner party in most parts of what is now the United States.  The pineapple was the center and star of dinner party spreads and would cause the utmost delight in guests, who came to regard a host able to procure a pineapple for the event as someone of great class and hospitality because of the great lengths and expense he/she incurred to acquire such a treat for his/her guests.

When I learned about this, I imagined if I were to travel back to my hometown in Ohio and invite friends and family over for dinner today.  Eager to show off my hospitality, only after much to-do at the dinner, I would unveil a perfectly ripe pineapple I had acquired for my guests from here in the Caribbean, confidently expecting it to be the highlight of their lives.  Even after looking proudly back and forth from my guests to the pineapple with a big smile on my face and the occasional prompting ("welllll???") waiting for the profusion of excitement and gratitude to come forth, song and dancing to begin, etc., all I would probably get is shoulder shrugs and maybe: "a pineapple? ok...."  Alas.  Perhaps a couple hundred years ago I would have been a host of highest regard and the talk of the town because of my ties to tropical America, but modern-day transportation has made pineapple just another common grocery store item, along with many other exotic fruits that used to hold positions of great honor at dinners and parties.

Even though you can find pineapples at the grocery store, the fruits you find there are picked when they are mostly green; they ripen off the plant.  Our pineapples here at Kona Kai, however, are only picked from the plant when they are golden-yellow all over.  The taste is amazing and even richer and sweeter than pineapples from the grocer!  We prepare all the fruits that grow here in our gardens for our guests to enjoy after they ripen on the plant, and the pineapple was no exception.  Here are a few pictures of the preparation:

Ripe for the picking.

Perfect color.

Pineapple poolside.

After the last picture was published on Kona Kai's Facebook wall, I was contacted by several five-star restaurants with job offers because of my clearly exemplary preparation and presentation skills, but breathe easy, I have turned them all down.

Because of the pineapple's historical importance discussed above, it has become a symbol of a warm welcome and great hospitality, which is why we have chosen it to be the first plant you see as you come through the gateway to our resort.  Perhaps eventually we'll have a pineapple calendar on our website so you can plan your vacation to coincide with a ripe pineapple and then spend the day by the pool imagining it's 1494 and you're the envy of kings as you leisurely sample the tastiest, most in-demand and impossibly hard to acquire fruit in the world.


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

P.S.  A reminder - you can now follow this blog on Twitter.

2011 APGA Conference in Philadelphia

Last week Joe, Ronnie and I headed to Philadelphia, PA for the annual American Public Gardens Association (APGA) Conference.  It was my first time attending an APGA Conference and also my first time in Philadelphia.  With over 600 registrants from institutions all over the U.S., there were plenty of people to meet and network with.  There were also plenty of presentations to attend in multiple fields including: Education, Leadership & Innovation, Marketing & Guest Experience, Horticulture, Volunteer Programs and Donors & Members.  In addition to presentations, there were also a number of optional tours of gardens in Greater Philadelphia.  The theme of the conference was "More" and for me, it lived up to the theme as there was MORE than enough of interest to choose from to fill up each day.  If anything, the theme was too good as there seemed to be no end to the usage of that one word and puns that could be played with it in the weeks leading up to the Conference (see previous sentence).  Indeed, it was almost MORE than I could handle!  The conference not only served as a great introduction to many aspects of public gardens but provided the opportunity to go more in-depth into areas of particular interest.  Below is an example of one of the round-table presentations:

I attended sessions about collections interpretation, augmented reality, marketing, surviving financially in tough economic times, providing visitors with excellent service, implementing a landscape consulting program, managing a volunteer program and sustaining collections in the face of adversity and change.  I particularly appreciated the opportunity to learn more about areas in which I have not had extensive experience, as the management of a botanic garden requires knowledge in a number of diverse disciplines.  In addition to attending presentations, Joe, Ronnie and I toured Bartram's Garden and Chanticleer, the latter being an especially exceptional garden in my opinion.  While there, we were fortunate enough to see one of the most spectacular flowering plants in full bloom - the rare hot-air-balloon-flower plant:

The Exhibits Hall at the Conference was a highlight for me; it allowed us to see some of the latest products/services being offered, try out these products first-hand and meet the people behind the products.  We have been looking into making our collections information available to our guests on their mobile devices, so we were especially interested in booths by Guide by Cell, GuideOne and BG-Map, each of which has something to offer in this arena.  ESRI also had an exciting program called the Public Garden Data Model on display, which bridges the gap between ESRI's mapping software and BG-Base, providing a much-desired connection between the two.  A parade of clearly lost festively-clad musicians accidentally found its way into the Exhibit Hall and livened up the atmosphere before being redirected to the annual Festively-clad Parading Musicians Conference, which was next door:

Overall, it was an excellent experience that has given us many ideas, valuable networking and helpful advice as we continue to lay the groundwork for the Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai during its first official year.


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director
(Photo Credits - APGA)