When Joshlyn Sand stepped off the plane on Kauaʻi in 1989, she felt like she was home. Thirty seven years later, she’s retiring from her role as director of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens.
Sand grew up in Springfield, Illinois, and spent her childhood visiting Washington Park. She took a summer job as a personal assistant to the director of the botanical gardens during high school and later worked at the garden.
“That’s when I started realizing it was a career path,” she said.
Promotions for jobs at botanical gardens in the Caribbean always drew Sand’s eye while it was cold and snowy in Illinois.
Sand majored in horticulture from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and traveled to intern for 12 weeks at the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauaʻi in 1989.
“The minute I got off the plane, I just remember the smell of Kauaʻi and the humidity and the way the air was, and it all felt weirdly familiar,” she said. “It just felt like home. There was something that felt familiar and calming and right.”
Her initial plan was to move to California, go to graduate school and become a grower, but that internship changed everything, she noted.
After the internship concluded, she worked at Kahanu Garden on Maui before taking a job as a plant propagator at Honolulu Botanical Gardens in 1990.
Sand said she can’t pick a favorite botanical garden on island.
“They all have different personalities,” she said. “I love them all. They’re all unique.”
Her office is at Foster Botanical Garden, which she said she loves how it serves as a green oasis in the urban core and for its rich history, which goes back to when Queen Kalama Hakaleleponi Kapakuhaili leased a parcel of her land to botanist Dr. William Hillebrand.
“Had it not been preserved, I’m sure we would be sitting where a high-rise is,” she said.
Koko Crater holds many of Sand’s memories developing the garden as a horticulturist in plant collections, she said, noting that her team opened new access points into the crater and transformed the garden.
“I walked away from that very different,” she said. “Those were the best times out there.”
Sand took the role as director of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens in 2017. As director, she manages the five botanical gardens that make up 650-acres, administers the Honolulu Recreational Community Gardening Program at 11 gardens, handles the budget and supervises the 37-person staff.
The small staff can be a challenge, but Sand said that 150 individual volunteers and many service projects contribute around 14,000 volunteer hours per year.
“We couldn’t do it without the volunteers,” she said.
The Covid-19 pandemic was an unexpected part of Sand’s tenure and underscored the importance of botanical gardens in the community, she adds.
“One of these things that was underscored during Covid was that these places are not just nice to have, we need to have them,” Sand said.
When the gardens reopened, people were lining up to get back into nature again.
Sand said that not everyone has the time or ability to hike, but botanical gardens mean that people can hear the birds and see nature in an accessible space.
Over the last eight years, Sand led the gardens in creating a long-term plan for Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden, revamped the community garden program and supported legislation to start revolving special funds for the parks and botanical gardens. The special revolving fund will allow the botanical gardens to keep their revenue instead of the money raised from classes and entrance fees going into the general fund.
Sand said the next director will need to make a road map for what projects they want to do that will make the most impact with the revenue, like implementing the first phase of the Hoʻomaluhia long-range plan and updating the Foster Botanical Garden master plan.
Honolulu Botanical Gardens shares its 5,000 species with scientists and researchers around the world, Sand said. The garden system is recognized as a level three accreditation by ArbNet for having a minimum of 500 species and contributing to scientific research or conservation.
Honolulu Botanical Gardens is a member of Botanic Gardens Conservation International. The inventory of the gardens, including who gave the gardens a plant, what year the gardens obtained it, how rare it is, how it was propagated, are uploaded to a BGCI database.
According to her, invasive species like the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle and recent storms have posed a challenge to the island's botanical gardens.
Hurricanes Lala and Lowell pummeled Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden, leaving eight to 10 feet of sediment near the lakeside, and caused landslides at Wahiawā Botanical Garden, making the gulch inaccessible to hikers, in addition to damaging plants.
One of Sand’s goals when she took the job as director was to increase attendance, and while she’d still like to see increased attendance at Foster Botanical Garden, Hoʻomaluhia has seen a 73% increase in visitors over the last 10 years.
Sand’s last day at the botanical gardens is Sept. 30, and she said “it’s bittersweet.”
Sand remembers the U.S. Poet Laureate W.S. Merwin visiting the botanical gardens and how a Star Wars theme for Midsummer Nights Gleam brought in 7,000 people.
“What I am going to remember is all the little times I had with people, the staff that I’ve worked with in this role and when I was a horticulturist,” she said, adding that she’ll also remember the horticultural wins, like germinating and planting the rare double coconut palm.
In retirement, she’s looking forward to taking care of her own garden, traveling, cooking, exercising and “living the slow life.”
Sand said that she wants to say mahalo to the public, mayoral administrations and City councilmembers for supporting the gardens over the years.
“I always tell the staff: we are just taking care of these places now and we’re going to hand it on to the next generation, and I know there are going to be so many cool people taking care of these gardens after me,” she said.
Haley Lehman can be reached at haley@alohastatedaily.com.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
