Merwin and his wife Paula in their Maui garden; photos and text sourced from The Merwin Conservancy
THE MERWIN CONSERVANCY Announces the Preservation of the MERWIN PALM FOREST. When W.S. Merwin, a Pulitzer Prize winning U.S. Poet Laureate and resident of Maui, Hawaii, came upon a parcel of land in the small valley of Pe’ahi Stream in the late 1970’s, he found an agricultural wasteland with the soil decimated and eroded by a failed pineapple plantation. Merwin set about a nearly 40-year journey to give back to the land, cultivating and creating a lush botanical garden, which today has become a dense forest of palm trees. By the numbers: 19 acres, 2,741 palm trees, over 400 taxonomic species, more than 125 unique genera, 800 horticultural varieties “The Merwin Conservancy is proud to stand today with the Hawaiian islands Land Trust, Copper Canyon Press and the Merwin Family to announce the permanent protection of the Merwin Palm Collection, saving the palms and the land from any future development, forever,” said Conservancy Executive Director, Jason Denhart.