Hakalau Jodo Mission hosts annual bonsai exhibition with demos, prizes, pizza

Bonsai fans got a full day at Hakalau Jodo Mission: the 2nd Annual Bonsai Exhibition packed in demonstrations at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., hourly door prizes, cash-only plant, pot and cinder sales, and wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas from Pizza’Ono. The setup made the mission grounds feel less like a simple sales stop and more like a working clubhouse for Hawaii Island’s bonsai scene.

The Island of Hawaii Bonsai Association used the April 25 event to showcase bonsai groups from across the island, and the format rewarded anyone who came early and stayed awhile. Visitors could move from the display area to the demo space, then back to the sales tables to pick up material or tools, while the hourly prize drawings gave the day a steady rhythm. With door prizes awarded each hour, being on-site mattered, and the cash-only rule for plants, pots and cinder kept transactions simple and immediate.

The return to Hakalau also mattered. The 2025 gathering at the same mission was billed as an Island of Hawaii Bonsai and Asian Art Show and drew visitors from across the island, with participating groups including the Hakalau Workshop, Kaumana Senior Center groups, Ohana Lehua Bonsai Club, the Puna Bonsai Ohana Workshop and the Pahoa Senior Center Classes. The 2026 exhibition carried that same community energy forward, but with the cleaner focus of a dedicated bonsai exhibition and a calendar listing that put the mission back on the island’s spring bonsai map.

Hakalau Jodo Mission gave the event a setting with its own history. The mission says it has served families, friends and neighbors for more than 120 years as a place for inspiration, celebration and community events, and that long-running role fit a bonsai show built around shared skill, patient craft and public welcome. The Hawaii Bonsai Association says bonsai in Hawaii likely began with Japanese immigrants arriving as early as 1868, a lineage that gives the Hakalau exhibition a deeper cultural frame than a typical weekend plant sale. On one spring Saturday, the mission became a gathering point where trees, pots, tools, food and local growers all met in one place.