DANA ANNE YEE, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, LLC.

Three Landscape Architects enjoyed a beautiful night visiting AIA offices at Downtown Honolulu at the AIA Firm Crawl event organized by Olina King, AIA events and operations coordinator and AIA. Tomoko Naka spearheaded our girl's night out with Kelsey Wai both from Bowers and Kubota and me Dana Anne Yee, FASLA. What an absolutely fun evening visiting five downtown AIA offices. Each office was filled with welcoming wonderful staff., food, and activities. We started at VCBO

A truly enjoyable class by the City and County of Honolulu at Foster Botanical Garden taught by sweet Lasar and assistant Diane. Lasar taught us how to press flowers. and our class arranged the pressed flowers in one-of-a-kind interesting designs which we framed in a matt board color of our choosing. We are now inspired to pick flowers and leaves and press them for future art masterpieces. Mahalo and Aloha to Lasar and Diane.

The ASLA Board of Trustees Meeting and Conference took place in September 2026. The surprise of the event was that the 2026 Primetime Emmy Awards took place right across from our JW Marriott LA Live Hotel. It was thrilling to meet Emmy Award winners with our ASLA attendees. The headquarter JW Marriott Hotel was just around the block from the Grammy Museum and on the morning of the first BOT meeting day, I had the opportunity to see this fun and interactive museum. Kona rec

The ASLA Hawai`i Chapter monthly meeting took place on August 21, 2026 at Magic Island. Our productive meeting was organized by our acting president Dominic. We discussed ASLA Board matters and future events. ASLA Hawai`i Chapter sponsored the ASLA Hawai`i Chapter and Students Pau Hana. After a week of rainy windy weather from Hurricane Lala watching the sunset at Ala Moana Regional Park was simply beautiful.

Learning how to weave a traditional lauhala covered half of brick was a wonderful way to spend Saturday morning at Ho`omaluhia Botanical Garden. Susan, my mom, and have taken many of Richard's classes in the past and this class was equally rewarding. We all took home a special handmade lauhala covered brick that we weaved ourselves. Richard's helpfulness and kindness is why we continue to take classes from him at the base of the beautiful Koʻolau Mountains. Hoʻomaluhia Bo

The 2026 Annual Halawa Xeriscape Garden Unthirsty Plant Sale took place on a beautiful sunny Saturday, August 1, 2026. Ms. Sheri Mikami Community Relations Specialist II for the Board of Water Supply was the community leader of this annual BWS event. Malu Stanich, ASLA, Dana Anne Yee, FASLA, and William Perreira, represented ASLA Hawai`i Chapter at our community ASLA event. Alex Tamai, ASLA kindly visited with his wife and new baby. The ASLA Hawai`i Chapter was part of the ma

A wonderful class that sparked my creativity to learn a new art form, aquatint, took place at the Honolulu Printmakers, every day for one week. Artist and Wicked Bugs and Wicked Plants illustrator Briony Morrow-Cribbs guided us through copperplate etching and airbrush aquatint (with an automized mist of acrylic) to create tonal gradient intaglio prints. Briony (and her husband Abe) from a small town of 2,000 was the visiting professor from Dummerston, Vermont. The theme wa

A wonderful day was spent at the Honolulu Museum of Art on July 19, 2026, to celebrate Hawai`i's connection to the Ocean at HoMA's Community Sunday. A beautiful Sunday to enjoy walking around the Museum, exploring the galleries, and taking part in the many activities. We made beautiful Gyotaku fish prints of the invasive, Ta`ape (Lutjanus kasmira) Yellow Snapper Fish. We participated in creating clay sculptures to raise awareness with Coral Care Arts, we learned about preser

A summer workshop and testing to renew my TRAQ - Tree Risk Assessment Qualifications after 5 years took place in Hawai`i at the Lester McCoy Pavilion at Ala Moana Regional Park on July 8, 9, and 10, 2026. Kevin Eckert provided his teaching skills in this two-day educational course and a half day comprehensive written and performance-based field day assessment test. As an International Society of Arboriculture Certified Arborist since 1995 and TRAQ Certified since 2022, qual

A mid-day walk in Waikīkī provided me the opportunity to walk by and check out my landscape project the Romer House Hotel in Waikīkī that opened two years ago. What a pleasant surprise to see the landscape on the street frontage, green and flourishing. The Kalo Lo`i in the middle of Waikīkī reminiscent of the day's past were green and growing, the Hotel sign was installed, and the native plants were proudly blooming. It is so nice that the landscape is doing so well. Smil

We continued our Annual Tradition to celebrate May Day at Kapi`olani Regional Park. This City and County of Honolulu event was the 98th Annual Lei Day Celebration that we always look forward to. We were taught how to make Coconut leaf stars and fish that we held at the end of the Coconut rib, waving like we caught a fish. We watched as the kind City volunteer ladies made us flower Haku lei wristlets. We walked around with the scarce (due to the many storms) Plumeria flower

Alberto Ricordi, the University of Hawai`i at Manoa Ornamentals & Landscape Assistant Extension Agent, invited us to this wonderfully enjoyable relaxing day at the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience (CTAHR) at Waimanalo. Alberto gave a short class and question answer time before guiding us, past the taro field, to the collection field of many varieties of Plumeria Trees. After the storms there were not too many flowers for this busy time of year but the flo

Dried Lauhala from the Pandanus Tree were `Ulana (weaved) into this Moena (Lauhala mat) Kanapī (Centipedes) made from Lauhala “crawls all over your feet” Loggins and Messina Saturday afternoons in February and March of 2026 were spent at the Honolulu Museum of Art learning the Native Hawaiian practice of `Ulana (weaving). Jordan Paguirigan taught us the cultural significance of Hala (Pandanus) and its importance to Hawaiʻi. We learned how to clean, cut, and strip lau hala

What a nice way to spend Chinese New Year with my mom. We started the day at a wonderful Succulent and Rock Garden Class at Foster Botanical Garden. Lasar and Melody taught us how to arrange the rocks, planter mix, and succents to make our beautiful gardens. We then enjoyed a delicious meal at Utage, filling ourselves up with oxtail soup and a teri burger where we saw David and Tony. We added to our meal Kam Bakery glazed donuts and Young's Fish Market charsui. Yummy. We

A beautiful morning was celebrated at King Liholiho Elementary School on February 11, 2026. The air was filled with happy sounds of students, teachers, staff, and the Royal Hawaiian Band. fifty former retired teachers were treated to enjoyable presentations by Liholiho students. The students and staff planned for 1 year and performed presentations from true and false questions about the school, to an original song to honor a generous King, to a demonstration about how an im

Printmaker Volunteers at Hawai`i Plantation Village were rained out due to the big Wind Storm of February 7, 2026 We were eager to make prints with the community at the Waipahu Hawai`i Plantation Village 2026 Year of the Fire Horse printmaking outreach event but due to the strong winds and rainy weather the printmaking event was cancelled. The good news is that most of the event and activities were moved inside. We enjoyed the festivities by playing bingo and pin the face on

Architects as Artist will be presenting the 4th exhibition at the Downtown Art Center from January 22, 2026 to February 7, 2026. 40 artists including, architects, landscape architects, planners, designers, and students will be exhibiting their work in the show. Blue Bird Tiptoeing on a Pink Pineapple , Ae`o , native Hawaiian Stilt at Helemano. 2025, Screenprint. I have had the pleasure of being in all 4 Architects as Artist exhibitions thanks to the encouragement of archite

The art of Kokedama began in Japan centuries ago, during the Edo period (1603 - 1868). Kokedama translates to "moss ball" in the Japanese language and maybe a simpler gardening technique and alternative to Bonsai. Under the expert and kind guidance of our teacher, Lasar and with the help of assistants, Melody, Diane, and Mona we created beautiful Kokedama. Each Kokedama class member created their own original Kokedama. We formed a ball, soil, added our special plants, wra

Scenic Hawai`i, Kapi`olani Park Preservation Society, and the City and County of Honolulu worked together to plant 3 Kukui Nut Trees in line with the historical and Exceptional Date Palm Trees and the 2 Kukui Nut Trees that were planted during Arbor Day 2024. Cis George and Alethea Rebman introduced Arbor Day to our well attended event. Heidi Bornhorst shared information about our State Tree. The Kukui Nut Tree is a symbol of enlightenment, learning, and knowledge and it ha