Last week Monday, oops I guess I should have posted this sooner, Danya and I went on a little adventure. When running errands a couple of weekends ago I noticed giant metal flowers from Kamehaha hwy. Curious as I can be at times I went to check out what it was. It is the University of Hawaii at Manoa Urban Garden.
It's a great little mystery. It's hidden behind a storage area so that all you see when driving past is a field and the large metal flowers. The sign by the road is even hard to read. So after going online and finding out the hours and learning it was a free adventure we loaded up on Monday morning and went. When you arrive you have to sign in, in the office and sign some waviers. Then they gave us a Map and let us loose in the Children's Garden. They have lots of other gardens but those looked like the most fun for us. First we did the hedge maze.
Danya thought it was a lot of fun, but had a hard time understanding what happened when she ended up in a dead end. Then off we went. At first I thought she wasn't really going to be into it because she seemed more interested in the white pipe fences, but she soon got into the idea of getting to explore.
We went to the boardwalk garden first. This was a little nerve racking for me thinking of the boardwalk bog back in MN but no need to worry, the water plants were planted in large drums which were then dug into the ground. Very water efficiant of them.
At the end of the board walk garden was a bench. Since I haven't been able to get Miss Danya to sit for a photo in a while I thought I would give it a try. Well no better luck here I'm afraid she just wanted to keep exploring and explore she did. Right next to the bench was a non functioning outhouse. I'm sure at one time they may have planned on having it work but not anymore.
The scarecrow that was in it was completely dismantled and the whole inside was just nasty, Danya was not allowed to do more than open the door and close it, which she did for about 10 minutes. Then it was off to walk around some more.
The next garden we came to was the butterfly garden. It isn't quite what I expected but they had this really cool hedge tunnel which Danya ran up and down about 20 times. Naturally I ran up and down the outside for that whole time too just to make sure she didn't explore and get lost.
The next few gardens were a fast walk through. First was the Sundial garden. It had a large sundial made from rocks and flowers, Danya looooves rocks so she spent a while walking around in the rocks listening to them crunch. Then was the animal garden where all of the plants have an animal in the name, like the flamingo flower.
Notice the large shrub shaped like a giraffe. Then came the sensory garden it had lots of poky grass type plants, CD mobiles, and smelly flowers. It would have been really fun to read some of the plaques but not with a toddler. Next to this what the Hawaiian Alphabet tree garden but that wasn't interesting to her at all, instead she headed for the giant metal rainbow that marks the entrance to the Children's gardens.
This I have seen from the freeway and often wondered what it was. No gold at the end of this rainbow unless you count the priceless bundle of activity that is exploring there. I didn't try to match up the photos in this post very well. I posted this over on Facebook that same day and forgot all about the blog post I started. Oh well it's still fun a week later right?
Last week Monday, oops I guess I should have posted this sooner, Danya and I went on a little adventure. When running errands a couple of weekends ago I noticed giant metal flowers from Kamehaha hwy. Curious as I can be at times I went to check out what it was. It is the University of Hawaii at Manoa Urban Garden. 
It's a great little mystery. It's hidden behind a storage area so that all you see when driving past is a field and the large metal flowers. The sign by the road is even hard to read. So after going online and finding out the hours and learning it was a free adventure we loaded up on Monday morning and went. When you arrive you have to sign in, in the office and sign some waviers. Then they gave us a Map and let us loose in the Children's Garden. They have lots of other gardens but those looked like the most fun for us. First we did the hedge maze. 
Danya thought it was a lot of fun, but had a hard time understanding what happened when she ended up in a dead end. Then off we went. At first I thought she wasn't really going to be into it because she seemed more interested in the white pipe fences, but she soon got into the idea of getting to explore. 
We went to the boardwalk garden first. This was a little nerve racking for me thinking of the boardwalk bog back in MN but no need to worry, the water plants were planted in large drums which were then dug into the ground. Very water efficiant of them. 
At the end of the board walk garden was a bench. Since I haven't been able to get Miss Danya to sit for a photo in a while I thought I would give it a try. Well no better luck here I'm afraid she just wanted to keep exploring and explore she did. Right next to the bench was a non functioning outhouse. I'm sure at one time they may have planned on having it work but not anymore. 
The scarecrow that was in it was completely dismantled and the whole inside was just nasty, Danya was not allowed to do more than open the door and close it, which she did for about 10 minutes. Then it was off to walk around some more.
The next garden we came to was the butterfly garden. It isn't quite what I expected but they had this really cool hedge tunnel which Danya ran up and down about 20 times. Naturally I ran up and down the outside for that whole time too just to make sure she didn't explore and get lost. 
The next few gardens were a fast walk through. First was the Sundial garden. It had a large sundial made from rocks and flowers, Danya looooves rocks so she spent a while walking around in the rocks listening to them crunch. Then was the animal garden where all of the plants have an animal in the name, like the flamingo flower. 
Notice the large shrub shaped like a giraffe. Then came the sensory garden it had lots of poky grass type plants, CD mobiles, and smelly flowers. It would have been really fun to read some of the plaques but not with a toddler. Next to this what the Hawaiian Alphabet tree garden but that wasn't interesting to her at all, instead she headed for the giant metal rainbow that marks the entrance to the Children's gardens. 
This I have seen from the freeway and often wondered what it was. No gold at the end of this rainbow unless you count the priceless bundle of activity that is exploring there. I didn't try to match up the photos in this post very well. I posted this over on Facebook that same day and forgot all about the blog post I started. Oh well it's still fun a week later right?
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