Landscaping Prize Goes To Kailua Library

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Cindy Iverson reads with her children Brooke and Joseph while Shirlee Dawson reads on a bench in the award-winning renovated courtyard at Kailua Library. Photo by Kalena Hayden.

Long the home of book worms, Kailua Library is now attracting green thumbs. And the result is an award-winning courtyard.

“Lush and beautiful,” said Kalena Hayden, Friends of Kailua Library board member of the project, which just won the Betty Crocker 2007 Landscape Award of Excellence for community gardens and public spaces.

Partners on the courtyard renovation are the Friends, Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle, Kaneohe landscape contractor Vernon Kawahara and the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, which provided a $70,000 grant.

Completed in June 2006, the area features bougainvillea, ti leaf, palms, a tranquility fountain, new floors and fencing, and tables and umbrellas. It’s so eye-catching, in fact, it can be distracting to tennis players on the adjacent courts.

“Some volunteers say when they play tennis they try to get the other person facing the courtyard because they look at the flowers and tend to miss their balls,” Hayden explained.

Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle’s Lynn Rogers, Kailua Library branch manager Patti Meerians, Kalena Hayden of Friends of Kailua Library and Sharon Geary of Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle with the landscape award. Photo by Eugene Hopkins.

The public also enjoys the courtyard, where groups meet, students study and others bring their lunches and , of all things - read a book. Hayden said smaller-scale renovations occurred between the ‘60s and ‘90s, but this project was “the first major change in 40 years.”

The $150,000 face lift took about three to four years to plan and a year’s worth of work. Lynn Rogers and Sharon Geary of the Outdoor Circle headed up the selection of plants, and they will spearhead garden maintenance with the help of Women’s Community Correctional Center inmates, who visit twice monthly.

The Outdoor Circle donated many of the plants, and Hayden’s neighbor donated some huge bluestones.

Kawahara designed it, planned the time line and went “above and beyond just being a contractor,” she noted.

When rain delayed planting, Hayden said he took them to his place, kept them watered. “The day we could plant them, there he was with the plants and digging holes ... He was just a wonderful asset.”

Hayden said the Friends of Kailua Library is hoping to win approval from the Hawaii State Library System to install an all-weather awning “so that patrons can further enjoy it, rain or shine.”

The landscape award honors the late Betty Crocker, a founding member of Scenic Hawaii and a longtime advocate of protecting the state’s natural beauty. She also served as president of The Outdoor Circle.

Scenic Hawaii also gives awards in the categories of professional landscapers, private gardeners and xeriscape gardens.