Plants that came from this history and remain in the Garden include a row of stately palm trees that line the scenic route, and the towering wild banana, mango, coconut and guava and monkey trees you see on the ocean side of the Garden.
After the Onomea Sugar Mill ceased operations, many of the earlier settlers moved away. For a time parts of the valley were used to farm lilikoi (passionfruit) and graze cattle, but by the early 1900s Onomea Valley was deserted and the vegetation so dense that few signs of the former habitation could be seen.
By the 1960s and 70s, Onomea Valley was an overgrown and virtually impenetrable jungle, choked with wild invasive trees, weed and thorn thickets, and strangling vines. This is the state of the land when Founders Dan and Pauline Lutkenhouse discovered it in 1977.