ByKen Ige, Star-Bulletin
Jackie Nagano displays the false heather in the Rainbow Garden
the members of her 4-H club planted.
IT'S not like it used to be. You don't need a cow and you don't need a turnip farm. 4-H has moved with the times. Kids today are more interested in rockets and photography than they are in animal husbandry, and anyway, you can't keep a cow in a condo. The youth development program of the University of Hawaii Cooperative Extension Service emphasizes learning by doing, and you can still raise pigs or the world's largest watermelon, but there are many more options. Garden grows
rainbow brightThe nine girls, aged 6 to 13, who form the Rainbow 4-H Club are neighborhood friends. They have completed such projects as sewing matching club shirts and studying poetry. But most of their club time the past year was spent in the installation of the Rainbow Garden at the Urban Garden Center in Pearl City. County agent Steve Nagano, who is assigned to the Urban Garden, is the father of one of the girls and is closely associated with the 4-H program.
According to his daughter, Jackie Nagano, the idea for the garden was entirely practical. The Rainbows often met at the little pavilion at the Urban Garden Center, and between the pavilion and the soft drink vending machine was what turned to a patch of mud in wet weather. At 13, you are already interested in trendy shoes and mud can ruin them. "So we decided on a 4-H community service project to beautify the area. First we thought of just a pathway," Jackie said. But thinking big is encouraged in 4-H. If you can build a pathway, why not a walled garden to surround it?
Plans were drawn with the approval of the Urban Garden Center and its manager, Mark Takemoto, education specialist with the Cooperative Extension Service. The first thing that became obvious was that the cumulative allowances of the Rainbows was not going to come close to paying the bills. Neither would car washes and chicken sales. This was big bucks, at least 2,000 of them. The girls and their families solicited donations, both cash and necessary components of the garden.
Have you ever tried to turn down an 11-year-old girl with big plans to do something great for her community? The fund-raising went faster than anybody thought it would, and material gifts came from nurseries, a sprinkler company and hardware suppliers. Most of the money went toward buying cement for the walkway.
ByKen Ige, Star-Bulletin
Tess Nishida relaxes by the garden's silver trumpet tree.
"We got started on June 6 last year," Jackie said. "Our parents did most of the work in the beginning." The first move was a retaining wall made of rocks from the property. Jackie's grandfather, Judo Uno, an experienced wall builder, was volunteer foreman, helped by Steve Nagano and another father, Tom Nakasone.In the meantime, the girls dug trenches for the irrigation system. "We had to work it all out on paper," said Tess Nishida. "Then we laid it out with strings, so that the sprinkler spray would overlap and everything would get watered." Big boulders were moved by the Urban Garden staff to serve as seats in the Rainbow Garden. And that was about the end of major adult participation.
Next came the walkway, which looks like hand-set stones arranged one by one. "We thought of that," Jackie said, "but we found out about a better way." This is where all that cement comes in. The girls learned of a method using a mold that makes a dozen irregularly-shaped cement rocks at once.
This occupied their weekends for a month. "You start with a layer of sand, then you level it and put the mold on the sand. Then very carefully, you pour in the cement. It has to be just enough because if you get too much , it just levels out and looks like pavement," Tess said.
The walkway was curved to resemble the arch of a rainbow, a concept that ate up more cement than if it had been straight. The method used by the girls is available at large hardware stores, and works well in small gardens. It gives a much less institutional look than flat pavement does.
The lawn came next. Planting grass plugs, the Rainbows learned, is stoop labor and hard work. They used plugs from the Urban Garden's lawn display, using El Toro zoysia at Nagano's recommendation. "It's disease-resistant, and you can walk on it ," Jackie said. The plugs went in at the end of October and spread during the rainy winter months.
The most fun came at the end of the project, the girls agreed, when they put in the garden. In keeping with the theme, they chose flowers in the colors of the rainbow. They have violet false heather, red ginger, green calathea and the yellow flowers of the silver trumpet tree. The tree , a gift from the Parks Department nursery, and was chosen because of its noninvasive root system and for the shade it will provide.
The garden has already won an honorable mention from the Youth for America's annual competition. And nobody has muddy shoes any more.
For more information about the 4-H program, call 956-7196. There's room for everybody , including adult advisors, in programs ranging from food and health to aerospace and karate. Right now, the Rainbow Club is planning their end-of-school fashion show, but they're looking for their next project. All they have to do is to get rid of all the apple snails in the Urban Garden's irrigation pool and they can plant a water garden.
Gardening Calendar
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