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The Lyman Museum presents “The Garden as Healer” on Saturday, May 19, the fourth excursion in a series of five East Hawaii Garden Tours focused on the Big Island’s agricultural potential and sustainability. This day-long tour begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends around 3 p.m.

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Explore the theme of community health and vitality with a visit to Akiko’s Buddhist Bed & Breakfast in Wailea.

Tour her B&B and gardens, hear her philosophies, and, especially, learn about the Wailea/Hakalau community, which meets once a week to share, swap and sell food, desserts, and plants.

“We share food we grow, and it varies from garden to garden, household to household, with what is in season, etc.,” she says. “It gives our community members a chance to meet, to talk story, to know each other. It gives some of our community peoples a purpose to grow food beyond just their immediate household, and to share.”

Lunch will be prepared from local products by local cooks, who will discuss Slow Food. Among other stops, Master Gardener Barbara Fahs will guide the group around her Hi‘iaka’s Healing Herb Garden, with its more than 100 species of Hawaiian plants, including endangered medicinal plants.

Val Kimbrough, president of the Big Island Beekeepers Association, will talk about bees and his business exporting honey, coffee and tea from Hawaii.

Participants will also take part in a “smell test,” designed for the tour by Hilo pharmacist and pharmacy instructor Marq Sims.

The tours are educational excursions led by Judith Kirkendall and Leslie Lang. Kirkendall’s field is the anthropology of food and Lang, author of Exploring Historic Hilo, specializes in the anthropology of Hawaii and the Pacific.

The next tour in the series is “The Garden as Paradise” on June 16. The tour provides transportation, free entry to featured activities, product sampling opportunities and lunch.

Wear comfortable shoes and bring an umbrella. Tickets include same-day admission to the Lyman Museum following the tour. Cost is $75 per tour. To register, call 935-5021 by May 16.