National Tropical Botanical Garden history

At the end of the partition process in 1967, Limahuli Valley was assigned to Juliet Rice Wichman, a member of the Hui who had long recognized the need to preserve and protect Limahuli.

In 1970 the trustees purchased the original 171 acres in the upper Lawa’i Valley, forming the institution’s first garden.

1972: Kahanu Garden established thanks to a generous gift and purchase of two parcels outside the town of Hana on the island of Maui.

In 1974, members of the Kahanu/Uaiwa/Matsuda/Kumaewa Family (descendants of Chief Kahanu) and Hana Ranch deeded 61 acres of land to the then Pacific Tropical Botanical Garden to establish Kahanu Garden.

In 1976, she gifted the lower part of the Valley, now known as Limahuli Garden, to the National Tropical Botanical Garden, and upon her death left the nearly 1,000 remaining acres to one of her grandsons, Chipper Wichman.

1988: Congressional legislation passed to change the name of the institution from Pacific Tropical Botanical Garden to National Tropical Botanical Garden following the acquisition of The Kampong in Coconut Grove, FL.

1990: NTBG assumes management of Allerton Garden, personal home and garden of NTBG founding Trustees Robert and John Gregg Allerton, located in the Lawai Valley adjacent to McBryde Garden.

1992: Construction of the NTBG Education Center and South Shore Visitors Center begins.

Damage to the Garden and destruction of the nearby visitors center interrupted the regular public tour program until 1995.

In 1997 a new visitors center was opened to service both the McBryde Garden and the Allerton Garden, situated on a 10-acre parcel outside the east end of the Valley.

After more than two decades of sporadic but necessary work, a major effort to complete the stabilization project was launched in 1998, with the oversight of archaeologists from the Bishop Museum and the State of Hawai’i.

As the result of an endowment gifted by the descendants of the family who had once owned the valley, in 2000 Lawa’i Garden was officially renamed the McBryde Garden.

2008: LEED Gold-certified Juliet Rice Wichman Botanical Research Center opens at NTBG headquarters in Kalaheo, Kaua’i.

2014: NTBG Celebrates 50th Anniversary.

2016: NTBG plays a pivotal role in bringing the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress to Hawaii, a first for the United States.

2017: NTBG’s Breadfruit Institute and partners launch the Regenerative Organic Breadfruit Agroforest in McBryde Garden as a vehicle for providing agroforestry design, management, and other sustainable practices centered around breadfruit conservation and education.