Purchase the perfect plant for lanai or interior space

Do you like to grow plants on your lanai or inside your home or office? Every lanai is different as far as plants that will thrive there, and so are interior spaces. It’s easier to grow plants outside in the ground, but not everyone has a garden space these days. A plant expert can help you pick the right plant for your needs.

Visit Foster Botanical Garden Plant Sale from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday to check out plant offerings, meet nursery growers and question garden volunteers about the right plant for your space.

Do you feel that the best plants are those you can eat? Herbs, miniature tomatoes, medicinal plants and more will be available at the sale, and will grow well on a lanai and make your home a happy, peaceful, pretty place.

The annual sale is an opportunity to visit the garden for free. When was the last time you got to check out the big trees, rare fruits, orchids, palms and the glass house full of lovely tropicals, arranged and cared for by orchid specialist Scott Mitamura and his corps of volunteers?

Check out the prehistoric glen full of rare cycads, also known as "dinosaur plants" because they existed back in the Jurassic, when dinosaurs were roaming around stomping on things.

Foster Botanical Garden is also home to many exceptional trees. The original rainbow shower, official street tree of Honolulu, grows there as does the first bo tree, a piece of the original tree from India, via Sri Lanka, under which Buddha sat and gained enlightenment.

And there is a double coconut palm that is growing fertile fruit for the first time. (We got the pollen from our sister garden, the Singapore Botanical Garden.)

To gain early access to the sale to grab the choicest plants in the cool of the morning, join the Friends of Honolulu Botanical Gardens.

Membership packages begin at $25 and can be obtained by emailing friendsgardens@aol.com or calling 537-1708.

Foster Botanical Garden is located at 180 N. Vineyard Blvd. (A bit of trivia: Vineyard Boulevard is so named because the first grapes in Hawaii were grown there.)

Parking at the garden downtown can be challenging. I suggest you park on a nearby street or at Kauluwela Elementary School, 1486 Aala St. You can drive back to the parking lot at the garden to pick up purchased plants.

For more information on the sale, the gardens or membership, visit www.fohbg.com.

Heidi Leianuenue Bornhorst is a sustainable landscape consultant specializing in native, xeric and edible gardens. Reach her at heidibornhorst@gmail.com.