Do It: Foster Botanical Garden, Brother Noland, John Cruz

FRIDAY-SATURDAY

>> Stars return to the Blue Note

Join two of Hawaii’s favorite pop musicians when Brother Noland and John Cruz team up on stage at Blue Note Hawaii. Each has earned a place of special significance in Hawaii’s pop music scene.

Brother Noland, with his tune “Coconut Girl,” is considered a father of Jawaiian music, an easy-going, reggae-based sound now commonly called Island contemporary.

(Did you know? Noland has said that while “Coconut Girl” started out as a blues tune in the vein of George Benson, he was inspiredto add a reggae baseline, then the countdown and cadences.)

Cruz’s 1996 album “Acoustic Style” was a breakout hit. The Hawaiian album had broad appeal around the world, with songs like “Island Style” being played on commercials and in public places, forever evoking the idea of Hawaii.

It took Cruz more than a decade to produce his next album, “One of These Days,” which demonstrated that the wait was well worth it, placing in the top 10 on two Billboard charts and winning the Na Hoku Hanohano Award for Contemporary Album of the Year.

SATURDAY-SUNDAY

>> Actors recreate history of island landmark

This weekend, a series of dramatic re-enactments will bring to life the story behind Hawaii’s first botanical garden.

Costumed actors will tell the story of Prussian doctor William Hillebrand (1821-1886), also an avid botanist who brought a number of new plants to Hawaii and planted them on the site, Mary Elizabeth Mikahala Robinson Foster (1844-1930), descendant of alii and widow of a successful shipping business owner, who lived on and donated the land to Honolulu, and Harold Lyon (1879-1957), a botanist who further developed the property into a full-fledged botanical garden.

Participants will move around the garden as each actor draws attention to a different section of the urban oasis, which occupies 14 acres in downtown Honolulu.

Participants will also be limited for each 45-minute-long program, and reservations are required.

Before or after the perfomance, participants will have access to the grounds, which include a section devoted to prehistoric plants, a famous orchid collection and a fig tree planted by Foster that, through cloning, is said to descend from the tree that Buddha sat under while seeking inspiration.