We design and create landscapes, environments & micro-climates for restoration, habitat enhancement, food production and enjoyment. Kīnā 'Ole is a full-service landscape design company.
Kīnā 'Ole means doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, in the right place, to the right person, for the right reason, with the right feeling; the first time.
Our goal on each project is to have a positive affect, be it however large or small.
What We Do
We have served clients throughout Hawai’i and beyond with services ranging from site evaluation and consultation to project implementation. Our focus is the creation and restoration of environments and micro-climates based on each client’s personal needs and desires.
Our baseline theology is centered around having a positive effect.
Since 1994, Kīnā 'Ole Sustainable Land Use has worked with clients designing, building and maintaining landscapes in Hawai’i. Clifton Dodge, founder and sustainable horticulturist, is committed to building gardens and microclimates through sustainable design, quality craftsmanship and unsurpassed attentive service.
By honoring nature and the native plants of Hawai’i and serving our clients professionally, Kīnā 'Ole has earned a reputation for excellence and trust from our community here in the islands.
Our Mission
Our Mission is to promote Maui’s sustainability by encouraging the use of native Hawaiian plants and edible species through organic horticulture. By working with individuals, groups, and schools we hope to perpetuate this consciousness to whatever degree we possibly can. Most importantly, we want to leave the world a better place for our children and our children’s children.
Each day when we walk away from a job, not only have we put some plants in the ground, we’ve also planted some seeds with the people who are there tending it in the hopes that those seeds will grow and will make seed of their own and spread so that our piece of goodwill will be as far reaching as possible. We are proud to bring that organic horticulture and concept of sustainability to all walks of life in the islands.
Clifton Dodge
Sustainable Horticulturist
Clifton Dodge had the good fortune of being born and raised in the Hawaiian Islands. Born on Kauai and raised on Maui since the age of 5, Clifton has always had a deep connection and love for both land and water. Here in the islands, there is no shortage of natural beauty and fragrant, fresh air. Lush tropical forests blanket the island’s mountains and pristine native Hawaiian plants hold unique environments found nowhere else on the earth. After a year of college and the realization of the perils of the planet, Clifton moved to Moloka’i with his father to farm, fish and surf. It was an amazing and eyeopening year.
Returning to Maui, he worked on an organic coffee farm and began to foster a love of working with the land. He left the idyllic tropical surrounds of his childhood home to attend the University of California in Santa Cruz to study sustainable agriculture and organic horticulture.
Here he had the simple yet profound realization that he would dedicate his life to having a positive impact on the earth.
Not only was California an early innovator in the development of sustainable agriculture programs, Clifton’s alma mater UC Santa Cruz had the first and most unique program in the country for practicing organic gardening. Clifton studied under the exacting direction of several master Gardners who directly studied under Alan Chadwick, bringing with him a blend of gardening practices he called “French intensive biodynamic.” He emphasized a craftsman-like approach to soil care, using compost and other organic fertilizers and eschewing anything synthetic. The methods he espoused—creating double-dug or “raised” beds, placing plants close together to limit weed competition, amending the soil with organic inputs—would eventually become standard practice for many organic gardeners across the U.S. and around the world. (Source: casfs.ucsc.edu)
It was through this diverse education that Clifton mastered the principles of creating a sound, sustainable ecosystem. After graduation, he returned to his island home where he lived and worked on a Permaculture Farm in Ulupalakua, learning about permaculture, agroforestry and rehabilitating an arid environment. He dove deeper into the philosophy of a sustainable and holistic lifestyle; a way of being that was naturally engrained in him from his upbringing.
With his bicycle and a Smith and Hawken fork and spade in hand, Clifton began planting gardens at 4,000 feet above sea level in the high elevation climate of Kula, Hawai’i. Clifton spent his early 20s on Moloka’i restoring the taro patties and building a permaculture garden on the island’s east end, further galvanizing his knowledge and love for the work.
With a career spanning 25 years and countless projects from rainy forest environments to arid dry desert, Clifton lives and works in sync with the seasons, allowing nature to reveal itself. He has designed and built residential gardens and planted seeds all over Maui Nui. Each project begins with an understanding of the place and its history; fostering an authentic connection to the ‘aina.
Walking the perimeter of a recent project, Clifton rattles off plant names in Hawaiian and Latin. This is the magic of Kīnā 'Ole. With a trained eye, deep knowledge, and unending passion, they have the ability to restore the land to its natural splendor, evoking a rare beauty and homeostasis. As a natural environmentalist, sustainability is a way of life for Clifton Dodge.