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As much as shares and swaps generate excitement at the prospect of finding the plant at the top of your wish list, “it’s all about the people,” as Gary Inayoshi pointed out at Saturday’s Windward Plant Swap in Kailua.
The Waipahu resident made the trek to Kailua not only to share his generous donations, including monkey’s tail cactus, but to assist organizers in setting up for the event and conducting the raffle.
An active participant at similar events around the island, he said that “Every plant share is unique, good in its own way. It’s all about the people. The people — and when you have someone that leads the plant share, that’s a good thing.”
Cactus babies donated by Gary Inayoshi
(photos by Therese Padua Howe)
The Windward Plant Swap is actually led by two someones — Shannon Kapepa and Kristal Thomason, who hosts the Kokokahi freestore. They started the swap, which is held in One Love Ministries’ parking lot, about two years ago.
“We kept seeing all the other plant swaps and then due to COVID everything shut down and nobody was doing anything,” Shannon said. “So I said, ‘Hey why don’t we start a plant swap,’ and we just kinda got our thoughts and ideas together, and this was born.”
Kristal sees the swap as an extension of the freestore movement — to bring those who can’t make it to a particular freestore to a central community event. “I think everything should be free here, (because) everything grows in abundance. So it’s just more helping spread the love everywhere else instead of just one location.”
They started holding them every three to four months, and with each swap, they learned and grew. At first, it was pure, unbridled sharing, but they realized that a little structure could make things even better.
Shannon outlined a few of the rules that have been instituted: “Bring something, and take something. No rushing … no selling — these are things that people have brought and have been growing, and they’re basically their babies!”
They understand that new gardeners may not have much at the beginning, but donations don’t have to be confined to plants, cuttings or seeds. She said that for one swap, one woman thought she didn’t have anything to contribute “but she brought butterfly chrysalis and they were in cute packages. Everybody loved that idea.”
The basic message for participants is simple: “Just to give and to share and to be part of a community,” she said. As a testament to how they’ve cultivated this community, many participants at the Saturday swap seemed to be spending as much time talking story as they were perusing the tables stuffed with plant goodies.
It was an easygoing, friendly gathering where people connected faces to names they’d seen on Facebook and shared their knowledge with each other.
“You get introduced to people that brought this plant and they don’t know anything about this plant — oh here’s the person that grows it and they can teach you how to propagate it and how to learn and what it does and if you can eat it,” Shannon said. “It’s something that excites them and it’s something that we all have in common. And I think for our plant swap we really want it to be a community. “
That sense of community extends beyond the actual event itself. On their Facebook group page, a post invited upcoming swap participants to note their “wish list” plants. In a couple of instances, people’s wishes were granted on the spot, days before the swap was to take place.
The level of generosity among the Windward swap community was also evident in the quantity and diversity of raffle prizes that were donated, from hard-to-find plants like King Kalakaua Spider Lily to cute handmade garden signs.
Like the 5-minute head start for kupuna at the start of Saturday’s event, the raffle is a new feature at the swap. Initiated at the last swap by the 808 Green Thumbs member who goes by Panda-momium, the raffle was established to ensure everyone has an equal chance at the most sought-after donations.
“This one was a little bit more organized. This time I tried to get all the raffle prizes ahead of time so that it could be here at the beginning of the raffle, that way people had a fair chance of getting any prize,” she said. “Let’s say someone brought a raffle prize really late but it was like the best gift, but then the first name was already called — it’s kind of unfair, right?”
Prior experience led to other rules, including allowing only one entry per household, so “we don’t have a family of seven (with) everybody entering,” she said.
“I feel like everybody’s morals are all the same, everybody’s ground rules are all the same, but it’s just about keeping things fair,” Kristal added. “But that’s what I would say is the best thing, so far with this swap, is that it’s gotten better every time we’ve done it. Way better — beyond my expectations.”
The Windward Plant Swap is a testament to the idea that a community, just like a garden, flourishes when its members are willing to share what they have in abundance.
Join the Windward Plant Swap community
Find out when the next swap will take place and join the Windward swap community by requesting membership on the private Facebook group.
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