A diver’s paradise

For Andy Butler, solace is a garden full of plants and mementos of the interesting and unusual items he’s pulled out of the ocean as a longtime diver.

Those mementos include shells, bells, a pre-contact lava-rock canoe anchor brought up from Honolulu Harbor, and part of a World War II airplane propeller and a set of binoculars he found in Maunalua Bay.

The propeller and binoculars are nestled in his Kahala yard among a colorful collection of bromeliads, orchids and tillandsia, a sealing wax palm and an antique pot filled with a papyrus plant and fish.

Butler, 84, has made hundreds of dives in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, and off the coasts of Tahiti, Fiji, Tonga, Indonesia, Palau and Midway in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. He started diving when he moved to Hawaii from Florida in 1959 and made his last dive about three years ago in Haleiwa.

"It wasn’t my vocation, it was my avocation," said Butler, who retired from the agricultural sciences industry.

Gardening is clearly his other passion. Every plant and tree in his yard, both in the ground and in pots, was placed there by Butler’s own hands.

A textured concrete walkway he built takes visitors past 25 Manila palms, bromeliads and lauae ferns in his small, rectangular backyard. Butler, former president of the Hawaiian Malacological Society, a group devoted to seashells, has succulents spilling out of large shells he collected while diving.

He once had a Madagascar euphorbia tree growing behind the house that he started in a pot, but he recently cut it down because it was overwhelming the space. The stump remains, its two armlike branches draped with Spanish moss.

A rare Panama palm (used to make Panama hats) was a gift from the late heiress Doris Duke, a horticulturalist in her own right. Butler met Duke during a monthlong trip to Russia and took care of her Black Point garden in the mid-1980s after she asked if he would do some landscaping for her.

She gave him the palm in return and it has since thrived in his garden.

Butler said he likes bromeliads because "they’re very long-lived and colorful and you can move them around. They’re like furniture."

From a screened lanai, visitors can look out over the yard while leafing through Butler’s copy of "Botanica," the universal reference for gardeners. Besides providing a hobby, his garden is recorded in the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Gardens.

Butler bought the house, built in 1927, 35 years ago and refurbished it. The home is decorated with some of his other marine treasures: colorful glass fishing floats, coral and an antique nautical lantern. He’s also brought the garden inside, with potted Eucharis lilies and a podocarpus, or plum pine.

Along the driveway, a Song of India (Dracaena reflexa) ornamental plant has grown taller than the two-story house. The stand-alone carport is hidden beneath a cloak of Thunbergia vines with purple and white flowers.

In front, Butler built a shade house where he cultivates exotic plants, including a type of ginger he brought back from Ecuador and beautiful varieties of alocasia (a broad-leaf perennial) from Hawaii landscaper Leland Miyano.

Early every morning, Butler is outdoors, gardening and pruning. He’s always planting new horticultural finds in his garden, which he said keeps him young.

"I’ve always loved plants," said Butler. "One of the reasons I came to Hawaii is because it’s a good place to garden."

"Garden Party" spotlights unique and exceptional gardens. Contact us via email at features@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4808.