After over two years of planning, four gardeners from Japan traveled to Hilo and built two suhama, or stone beaches, at Liliuokalani Park and Gardens.
K.T. Cannon-Eger has been working with multiple county administrations to help restore the park to what it looked like nearly 100 years ago.
Years ago, Hilo resident Roanne Nip shared a photo of her grandmother on the social media page, Big Island History in Photos, to see if someone recognized the location of a stone beach she was sitting on.
Cannon-Eger immediately recognized Liliuokalani Park and realized there were stone beaches when the photo was taken in the 1930s, before the 1946 tsunami that destroyed much of the area.
“When I saw the photo, I knew I wanted to work to restore this part of the park with help from expert Japanese gardeners,” Cannon-Eger said. “I started talking about this project when Billy Kenoi was mayor, and now with Mitch Roth as mayor and Maurice Messina in the parks department it was finally able to happen.”
Cannon-Eger received the first grant from the Japan government’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, or MLIT, in March 2020. MLIT has been supporting the restoration of Japanese gardens around the world since 2009.
The grant was gifted just before the parks closed during the first COVID-19 stay-at-home order. While the pandemic raged, Friends of Liliuokalani Park continued to apply for grants and raise funds to ensure that the project could happen when the time was right.
After that, travel bans caused the landscaping team to be delayed until this year.
“We’ve been planning for this job for about 1 ½ years,” gardener Yasumasa Imada said Tuesday.
Imada works with master gardener Hiromu Terashita and has traveled to four locations in the U.S. to help restore or build parts of Japanese gardens.
“This was not an easy job, but it was helpful that volunteers helped clear the mud before we chose stones and built the suhama,” Imada said. “Hawaii is beautiful, and it has been a good time here.”
Rev. Sohko Kuki performed a blessing Tuesday over the suhama and the four gardeners, who spent five days assembling the stone beaches.
Nip attended the blessing and was excited to see the new stone beaches that remind her of her grandmother.
“My grandmother was visiting Hilo from Honolulu when the photo was taken, so I was confused as to why I could not recognize the location,” Nip said. “To see this here now is surreal. I feel her spirit here.”
Email Kelsey Walling at kwalling@hawaiitribune-herald.com