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Little shop of Horticulture

Remember the “Little Shop of Horrors?” The 1986 cult comedy-horror-rock-musical stars Rick Moranis as an unlucky floral shop worker who raises a Venus Fly Trap-like plant, which feeds on human blood and flesh and grows to ginormous proportions.

Moranis stars as Seymour, who suddenly falls in love with a woman named Audrey, and he names the plant Audrey II.

But there’s nothing feminine at all about the carnivorous plant that grows out of control and screams “FEED me! FEED me!” until Seymour provides the ghastly goods.

Well, on Maui, a couple of Haiku farmers are raising gargantuan flowers that stretch to 4 feet tall. The good news is, we eat the plants, and they don’t eat us.

“One of the rare edible plants that we offer for sale is Konnyaku (Amorphophallus konjac) sometimes called Voodoo Lilly,” says Norman Mizuno, who runs the newly named Aloha Botanicals Maui with partner Alan Davidson. “The flower is about 4 feet tall and has the smell of rotten flesh.”

According to their sources, “In Gardens of Hawaii” and “Japanese Plants, Know Them & Use Them,” the Konnyaku is native to tropical and subtropical Asia, and is found everywhere from Japan to Korea, China, Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka.

Mizuno opened Haiku Maui Orchids 17 years ago, specializing in rare orchid species and hybrids. He and Davidson have won more than 200 awards for their displays and flowers all over the U.S.

“Recently, we changed our focus to a wide selection of edible plants as well as unique plants for the home and garden. We are one of the few nurseries that grow and propagate more than 90 percent of what we sell. Therefore we made the name change.”

As for the Konnyaku, “There are a few in bloom now,” says Mizuno. “We sell Konnyaku plants in pots and as bare bulbs. They are a very interesting plant family.”

Fetidly fragrant, the flowers are not the part that you eat. The root is. Cut, washed, dried and ground into flour, it’s made into a gelatinous cake. Since before the Edo period of Japan (that started in 1603), Konnyaku was cooked into Japanese dishes like winter stew, or “oden,” sukiyaki and mixed into seaweed salads. The above-mentioned books say that it detoxifies and improves blood circulation and is used in the popular diet aid Lipozene because its high fiber content swells when mixed with water, suppressing appetite.

Besides specializing in growing and selling the Konnyaku, Mizuno and Davidson always look for new and unusual things. Mizuno is from Pearl City on Oahu originally, and lived in New York City for 23 years, where he met Davidson, a pottery teacher. They grew orchids there and landed on Maui because a friend told them it was a good place to farm.

“Even when I was 9, I grew thousands of African violets,” says Mizuno, a child plant prodigy. “I invented a new way to propagate them and the University of Hawaii at Manoa took over the method.”

These days, Mizuno and Davidson grow everything from sudachi, which is like yuzu but juicier and with less seeds; variegated Eureka lemons that are more acidic than Meyers; Thai ginger that has a strong flavor; brown turkey figs; pineapple guava that is known as feijoa with beautiful flowers; vauvau or bele that the people of Samoa use like luau leaves; yacon that is a tuber similar to jicama; and dragonfruit in yellow and other colors.

“A lot of what we offer can be grown in pots on your lanai,” says Davidson.

“I went to cooking school and when I got out I said, ‘Let’s grow some edibles,’ ” Mizuno adds. “And we did!”

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