This Protea Farm on Maui Is Still Going Strong
At Malolo Farm in Kula, Ali Minney and her family have supplied florists with the winter-blooming flowers for decades.
Ali Minney and her family are third-generation owners of Malolo Farm in Kula, Maui.
The farm offers seasonal arrangements and wholesale Protea flowers and plants to local florists, and ships them interisland and to the mainland.
Minney, who is lead farmer and co-owner, says her in-laws bought the property in 1986. She says her husband’s uncle was “very involved with the early Protea coming to Maui” and inspired the couple to continue the family tradition when they inherited the farm in the early 1990s.
“Uncle showed us how to make the plants and so we’ve been propagating for years,” she says.
Proteas are native to South Africa and typically bloom during winter in Hawai‘i, according to Minney. During the off season, she says, they are pruning and cleaning up the plants because when the season is on, “it’s all systems go.”
The farm was unharmed by August wildfires that ravaged other parts of Kula that are higher on Haleakalā. “People were able to come and get water from our farm,” she says. “We were so lucky.”
Malolo Farm previously offered occasional tours, events and workshops. Those have been suspended, but Minney says, “We’ll be back.”
