DIY Watering Can

Happy Birthday, Dear Hawai'i Gardening Blog!

It's the second anniversary of this here blog thing. To celebrate, let's make ourselves a very thoughtful, very inexpensive gardening gift.

Watch it in action. You'll want one.

DIY WATERING CAN

Stuff You'll Need

Plastic laundry detergent bottle

Drill with bit that makes tiny holes

Utility knife

Rinse out bottle thoroughly. Drill plenty of holes in the cap. To allow air to flow into the bottle and keep the water free flowing, cut a hole near the cap in the handle – not to close to the cap, otherwise the water spills out there, too.

I make these and donate them to community and school garden projects. Makes a nice cheapo gift for any gardener who doesn't like to drag out the power tools themselves. Sure, laundry detergent bottles are #2 recyclable. But if you have to have those bottles anyway, reuse is better than recycle.

Edible Gardens, HI Lux Style

To eat well, it's best to learn how to grow well. Hope you'll enjoy reading my article about Edible Gardens in the August/September issue of HI Luxury Magazine, a glossy periodical published by StarBulletin/Midweek. To read the article, click here.

There are some great tips from two esteemed Hawai'i Island gardeners: renowned artist Mayumi Oda on her Ginger Hill Farm and Retreat Center in Kealakekua, and permaculture farmers Tom Baldwin and Shannon Casey at Uluwehi Farm in Hawi.

In the photo above is an edible flower, butterfly pea, Clitoria ternatea, that adds a splash of bright color with edible flowers and pods in Tom's sustainable garden. Cabbage and amaranth are just a couple of wonders growing in Mayumi's lovely mandala garden.

I hope you'll be inspired to cultivate bliss at your own doorstep.

Hawaiian Mint, Pokeberry, Raspberry

Are you a plant sale addict? Are you so afflicted that you'd buy plants instead of some yummy local-style grinds? If you’re like me, tables loaded up with transplants means emergency surgery on the wallet. This past weekend I succumbed to some hard-to-find natives at Volcano Art Center’s Forest Education Festival. Of course, it was a fundraiser for the center so I was just being supportive, right? Never mind that in seconds I ended up with only loose change in my purse and I had to go home for lunch instead heading for the food booths….

Mintless Mint, Stenogyne sp.

Without grazing animals to predate on them, many endemic Hawaiian plants put less energy into creating defenses such as thorns or unpleasant tastes. Thus Hawaiian mints, such as this Stenogyne, don’t have a minty taste or smell. However, as you can see in the photo, they do have the square stems characteristic of the mint family. This trailing mint prefers filtered light and moist areas, so I’m planting it under some ‘ohi’a trees in the backyard. The plant I bought has one long vine so I can get a few cuttings, too - I’m getting more than one plant for my money. Hooray!

Hawaiian Pokeberrry, Phytolacca sandwicensis

Who says native plants aren’t colorful? The first time you see Hawaiian Pokeberry, or Popolo ku mai, it will stop you in your tracks. I first saw these attractive, rose pink blooms and deep purple berries on a hike through Kipuka Puaulu, a mesic forest in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I love the deep purple venation on the leaves, too. It likes full sun it needs moist soil, so I’m planting it in a sunnier, open area farther from the house. I’ve been told it reseeds itself, so I’m looking forward to having a nice stand of pokeberry someday.

Hawaiian Raspberry, Rubus hawaiensis

Look, ma, no ow-ees. The endemic raspberry, known as ‘akala in Hawaiian, certainly has prickles, though it isn’t as nasty as the introduced varieties. The flower is dark pink and the fruit is usually large and tart, ranging from deep red to bright yellow. Hawaiian raspberry grows only at high elevations, usually in mesic and wet forests, and in woodlands, so maybe I'll have a chance at coaxing this one to take root here in Volcano Village at 4,000 feet. The kalij pheasants will probably find it unpleasant to peck at it despite its wimpy prickles, but looks like some chewing insects have already nibbled at the leaves; I’ll have to keep an eye on this transplant under the ‘ohi’a trees, too.

Ginger, Nice but Naughty

Gorgeous, isn’t it? Such a pity something so nice is actually a pest. Kahili ginger (Hedychium gardnerianum) is in full bloom now, rioting all over Volcano Village, including my yard. Its heavy perfume is an evening serenade, a fragrant backdrop for romantic stargazing on clear summer nights. Oddly enough, my cat might be allergic to it – he’s developed a rapid, machinegun-like kitty sneeze. Personally, I think the scent has a nicotine-like undertone and is inferior to white and yellow ginger. That, and K-ginger's invasiveness, permits me to charge full force with my machete. Snicker-snack!

The first Hawaiians brought "shampoo" ginger, which they called awapuhi (Zingiber zerumbet), to these islands. However, so-called “Kahili” ginger, like other gingers that have naturalized here, was brought to Hawai'i as an ornamental in the early 1900s, and since then it has created enormous environmental problems in the native rainforest, crowding out other plants. Heard of the invasive Himalayan raspberry? This is Himalayan ginger – no kidding. “Kahili” is a misnomer; it’s not Hawaiian at all. Sad to say, it’s just someone’s clever way of marketing a nursery product by co-opting a Hawaiian identity. Again.

Himalayan ginger is well-adapted to rainforest environments. It is shade-tolerant, is tall and has broad leaves to block sunlight from reaching competing plants, and it spreads by rhizomes and seeds, which makes it even more successful. Birds are attracted to the bright red seeds and spread them around to other areas.

Sure, you can keep hacking it back, but it’ll only laugh at you. At the nature trail of the Volcano Art Center’s Niaulani campus, volunteers spend every third Sunday of the month digging out the rhizomes in order to preserve the rare native species of the old-growth forest there. A good ecotourist activity if you’re interested, by the way. Click here for more info.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park uses another method: They cut the plants down to the rhizomes, and then they spray an effective (but expensive) chemical pesticide until the point of runoff. (I won’t say which pesticide it is – sorry. But you can ask them yourself, if you’re really desperate and have a big problem.)

Recycling on Your Own Turf

I'm away from Hawai'i now, spending some time in the San Francisco Bay Area on family business. Every time I travel to the city I'm amazed at how rural practices can get wildly out of hand in urban contexts. Take the concept of recycling, for example. "I'm a big-time recycler!" My city pals are fond of saying this. What it really means is that every week their curbside pickup consists of 3 colored bins: a blue one for recyclables, which they do not sort ("they have people who do that," they explain); green for "compostables," and gray for plain old "garbage," whatever that means. And, among my pals, there's competition for bragging rights to keeping the most out of the gray bin. Does this deter them from buying overpackaged items? Not necessarily -- because, hey, every week almost everything is "recyclable," right?

Apparently, in the city, recycling isn't necessarily connected with composting at home. Take for example the condo owner who lives next to my friend in the city of Alameda. That's his green bin in the photo above. He decided he no longer wanted a postage-stamp lawn and wanted a concrete patio instead - the way it was originally - so he ripped it out the grass and disposed of it just as it had come to him, sod piece by sod piece. Well, I guess he thought it is compostable, and so it made some kind of logical sense to him to stuff it in the "green" bin. But to me it somehow seemed a bit bizarre to see turf rolled up and stuffed in a garbage bin like a bit of old carpet, even though it would go to the green waste facility. Big time recyclers? Not quite, I don't think so, at least not yet.

Which makes me wonder: When it comes to recycling, how are we doing on our own turf, Hawai'i?

Mughal Gardens, Hawai'i Style

I’m thoroughly convinced that everything we choose for our outer surroundings reflects our inner landscape. Private, tasteful, extravagant, anachronistic, oddly out of place yet beautiful – that about sums up Shangri La on O'ahu and its creator, tobacco and hydroelectric power heiress Doris Duke.

Built in 1937, Shangri La sits high on Black Point on Diamond Head, the volcanic crater and tuff cone named Leahi (brow of the tuna) by the ancient Hawaiians. Indoors at Shangri La, there is an extensive collection of rare and priceless Islamic treasures that are the envy of world-class museums. As a gardener, though, I was naturally drawn to ponder the landscape outside: A natural Hawaiian reef and coastline that was forever changed through the unlimited wealth of one woman and her passion for the aesthetics of the Mughal Empire. To me the result is nothing short of astonishing, albeit tempered with a bit of melancholy, given the history of the person and the location of the estate.

Duke wanted to recreate the feeling of Mughal gardens, and while the hardscape mimics those traditional designs, the plants used are tough, drought tolerant, tropical types, typical of what you see around Hawaii’s lowland and beachfront homes exposed to salt spray and wind.

Are there earth-friendly, sustainable practices in these gardens? Only if you're musing the possibility that some vegetation choices might have been made in the context of xeriscaping. Other than that, hardly. But a visit here is interesting, nonetheless, especially because Islamic influences are rarely seen in Hawai'i.

Plants at Shangri La include:

Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae)
Coconut (Cocos nucifera)
Lily of the Nile (Agapanthus)
Tiare, Tahitian Gardenia, (Gardenia taitensis)
Naupaka kahakai (Scaevola taccada), a native Hawaiian species
Hibiscus
Bougainvillea
Oyster Plant (Tradescantia spathacea)
Joyweed (Alternanthera sp.)
Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens)

This Mughal garden design at Shangri La was inspired by
Shalimar Garden, Lahore (now modern Pakistan.)

Although Doris Duke was reputedly an orchid breeder to the highest degree, you won’t see any of her orchids at Shangri La. You might have a chance, though, if you travel to New Jersey to see the Orchid Range at Duke Farms.

To visit Shangri La, you must make reservations through the Honolulu Academy of Arts. For more info, click here.

Pa'ina and Pa'iniu

As usual, Volcano Village was abuzz with its July 4th celebration this past weekend at Cooper Center. Of course, there were booths with post-parade onolicious grinds for brunch -- malasadas, Thai curry, and pulled pork at 10 am. But first, quite naturally, I was sucked into the Lehua Lena Nursery booth selling an outstanding selection of native Hawaiian plants, such as native mint-less mint (Lamiaceae), olomea (Perrottetia sandwicensis), and kukaenene (Coprosma ernodeoides).

I was very excited to get one of my favorite natives, pa'iniu (Astelia) to try out in my yard. I’ve been in love with it ever since I saw it in bloom on a hike around Kilauea Iki. Its luminous silvery leaves and unusual flower spikes are quite striking among the deep green of the native forest.

I was also relieved to find a small seedling of ko'oko'olau (Bidens sp.). I needed one badly, right away, before my ku'u ipo returns from an out-of-town trip, since I accidently weedwhacked to a premature death the one that was in his yard : “Zeeeep! Uh oh, oh sugars.” That, and perhaps sharing some of my arugula, might help make amends. I hope.

Secret Seedling Exchange

Looks like while I was out the seedling fairy dropped by. I've been gifted with plants that have been grown in my neighborhood, coqui-free and quite possibly adapted to the growing conditions here. In my goodie box there are starts of arugula, lettuce, native Hawaiian peperomia, and something else that looks edible though I haven’t figured out what it is yet. Just the motivation I needed to get a high elevation garden going after abandoning plants from my lowland residence. Sharing seeds and seedlings are a great way to keep the gene pool strong with varieties that grow best in your area. A good way to make new friends, too.

I’m going to have to track down the giver of this thoughtful housewarming gift. I have an inkling of who it might be – an expert horticulturalist and devotee of plants that do well in my cool, acid rainy microclimate. She frequently holds seedling exchanges at her home, and though I’d love to give her credit I have a feeling I’d be chided if I revealed her name here. Let’s just say for now that I’m grateful that there are such generous spirits in the world, caring people who are committed to propagating life and beauty around us. Plant people are magical, indeed.