June 10, 2007

This week in the garden

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The large pikake outside my front gate is covered with hundreds of blooms. The fragrance is intoxicating. I trimmed the bush a few weeks ago, but it’s growing so wildy that it needs cutting back again already. The branches are surrounding the mailbox that sits in front of it and obscuring the house marker, so I’ll have to do it soon, but I’m trying to wait until the blooming is finished. I’d really hate to waste a single bud.

I got a little carried away buying plants a few days ago. I’d been planning to add some tropicals for a while, so I’m not going to let myself feel guilty about it. The front one here is white ginger. The rear one is blue ginger (I bought two of those.) White ginger is the fragrant one used for perfumes, so I put it close to the screened lanai.

The strange looking plant on the left is black ginger and the tall one is yellow ginger. I’d never heard of black ginger before. I’ve so far managed to resist doing any research because I’d like its blooming to surprise me (assuming that it blooms.) The black may refer to the leaf color, which, on close examination, is actually a combination of red and green but does look blackish.

Pink kimi ginger and heliconia. My plant expert at the nursery isn’t familiar with kimi, so we don’t know what it will look like when it blooms. I’d like to get a pink shampoo ginger and a red ginger to sqeeze somewhere in these beds.

I added two peace lilies to the rock garden with the anturiums and ferns. The red anthurium is healthy, but something is clipping stems from the pink. I’m thinking grasshoppers, since that’s the way they attacked my parsley. I let the parsley go since I try to avoid pesticides in the herb garden, but I’ll probably treat this bed so I can save the anthurium.

My big, ten-year-old jade plant out front has been looking sickly, with stems broken off. I thought maybe the neighborhood kids were falling in it while playing until I investigated today.

This is what I found when I trimmed away the dead growth and lifted up the foliage. The central stem is huge and woody - about as big around as the thickest part of my arm. It’s been completely hollowed out by termites. I’m amazed that the plant has survived at all, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to save it because the damage is pretty severe.

And that’s this week in Skeet’s gardens! I hope you had a little excitement and enjoyment in your own gardens this week.

The offer for the free Home Depot Garden Club newsletter I told you about a few weeks ago was supposed to have ended on June 1st. It’s been extended, so you can still sign up if you’d like. I got some good special offers for gardening supplies in my first email newsletter this week and I’m enjoying the tips and advice on the Garden Club site, so I’m happy with it! U.S only for the newsletter- sorry!

[tags]anthurium, gardening, gardening in Hawaii, ginger, Hawaii, heliconia, jade plant, peace lilies, photos[/tags]

June 6, 2007

The grass is growing!

This post is dedicated to my new friends at the Watching Grass Grow flikr group.

Last year I planted a lawn and promptly killed it. I’ve apparently learned from my mistakes because the lawn that my son and I installed Mother’s Day week is growing and healthy. The strips of sod we planted are spreading to fill out the spaces and it’s getting so tall it needs trimming!

There are even healthy, green blades of lushness growing out of the brown spots that apparently resulted from my careless application of fertilizer.

Just look at it reaching up towards the sky and the sun!

Investing in a lawnmower wouldn’t make sense for my little ten by ten plot and I was afraid the weed whacker would unsettle the newly planted sod. I bought new grass shears for this occasion and memorialized the first cut for posterity.

Finally, I feel like I have a legitimate claim to being a suburban homeowner!

[tags]gardening, grass, Hawaii, Hawaii gardening, lawn, photos[/tags]

June 3, 2007

Trouble in paradise

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My plumeria is in full, riotous bloom right now. All of those buds tell me the blooming will continue in full force for a while.

I know that some of my gardening friends are a teensy bit jealous of my year-round growing season and the lovely tropicals that seem to grow here in Hawaii with such ease. There’s certainly much here that others may envy. Keep in mind, though, that the delightful environment that makes my garden grow also favors other life forms. Despite my career path, I know next to nothing about plant pests. I believe this is whitefly. It’s concentrated on the blossom clusters at the end of the lower branches (perhaps because they are in constant shade?) The tree needed pruning anyway, so Saturday afternoon I cut off all of those lower limbs that were blocking the path. Today I’ll haul out the ladder and get a better look at the higher branches, but they look fine from ground level.

My new lawn has been in a couple of weeks. The small squares of sod are beginning to spread and need to be clipped.

I sprinkled a little Scott’s Turf Builder around the lawn a few days after we laid the sod. It’s formulated for Hawaii, but I think the sun was too intense for it and that that is what caused the brown spots. They don’t seem to be spreading anymore. I’ll take some patches of sod from healthy areas to fill in if I don’t see any new damage over the next week.

I’ve killed anthurium before. This little shady corner rock garden seems to be just the right environment for them to stay healthy and happy. I planted the red one the same day we laid the sod, and the pink one and the fern in the rear a week or two before.

The feathery fern in front of the anthurium and at the lower right of the photo above is wild. I cut it back a few weeks ago, but it’s growing out of control again already. The tendrils it throws out are already starting to wrap the pikake again. I need to move some of the rocks and dig out all of the roots so I can be rid of it for good.

So you see, my little corner of paradise is not perfect. Don’t you feel better now?

[tags]anthurium, ferns, gardening, grass, Hawaii, lawn, photos, pikake, plumeria[/tags]

May 27, 2007

Hidden garden

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One of the nicest aspects of what I do is that I get to go to different sites every workday. You would think that after twelve years I’d have seen everything there is to see on this relatively small island, but that’s just not so. I found this wonderful little jungle/garden sitting, like its own small green island, in between the parking lots for a condo complex and a restaurant.

Blue ginger looking shy and delicate, though it’s really quite hardy.

I need to learn more about the lobster-claw-looking heliconia. Don’t they look as if they must surely come from another planet?

The centerpiece of this little jungle is the magnificent banyan. I knew I wanted to use this garden for a GTS post when I took the pictures, but the banyan is so marvelous I had to share it the day I found it. I think it’s worthy of more than one post.

I wouldn’t oridinarily mentiton a sponsored post to my GTS visitors, but take a peek below. I put the Home Depot Garden Club right there because I think a lot of you will be interested. There’s a very nice gardening encyclopedia and plant care guide in addition to the features I mentioned in the post. It’s free to join. US-centric, but still a nice reference for any gardener.

[tags]gardening, jungle, Hawaii, tropical garden, photos[/tags]

May 26, 2007

Home Depot Garden Club

I love my Home Depot. Most of the materials and fixtures for my remodel came from there. It’s their garden shop that I love the most, though. I bought the sod for my lawn there last week while my son was in town and could help me put it in. The plants in my yard that didn’t come from cuttings and neighbor’s gardens all came from Home Depot. The personnel there are always able to answer my questions and I love that they stock more native Hawaiian plants than any of the other graden shops on the island. You can imagine, then, how pleased I was to find out that they now have a free Garden Club. I’ve just signed on today and am looking forward to getting my first newsletter and some special offers.

Online benefits include an interactive map for your own region and a lot of other helpful features, plus access to the Garden Club Community which contains:

Message Boards
Ask an Expert
Question and Answer Library
Events Calendar
Regional Gardening Reports
Refer A Friend
E-Cards
Wallpaper

You don’t have to have a Home Depot right up the road like I do to take avantage of the free Home Depot Garden Club, so click the link above sign up today. You garden will thank you!

[tags]gardening, Home Depot Garden Club, online newsletters[/tags]

May 20, 2007

My world is a happier place

I love my hose reel. I really do. Well, except when I don’t. I love having a neat little place to store my hose out of the way, but I hate that blasted thing when I’m trying to wind my hose back up onto the reel after I’m through using it. See, it wants two hands keeping the hose untangled and guiding it while a third hand turns the crank. Being blessed with the usual configuration of two hands, I always end up with a tangled mess. Sometimes the hose slips between the parts of the caddy and I can’t turn it all. When that happens I end up having to unwind the whole hose off of the wheel and starting over. Or leaving the hose in a messy pile for another day. I either need to get an accommodating roommate or find a hose reel that’s easier to use.

Ha! A clever inventor must have overheard my lament because the hose reel of my dreams is now available. You’ll have to go watch the video at No-Crank.com to see just how perfect the solution is. The only thing I can’t figure out is why it took someone so long to make the obvious connection. Water power is one of the first energy sources discovered and here you’ve got a hose full of water that needs moving in an orderly manner. 1 + 1 = a water-powered hose reel!

Ahhhh! That’s better!
Sheer genius, actually! It’s even got a little arm that guides the hose as it enters the reel so you don’t get tangles. I’m telling you, it’s the perfect solution to a problem that has vexed mankind for far too long. Now if we could just get someone to work on the whole war and poverty mess we’d have a pretty near perfect world.

[tags]garden hose, hose reel[/tags]

Putting in a lawn

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My front, left and back yards are xeriscaped, covered with gravel and having a few potted plants and a couple of small planted areas. The Leeward Coast is quite dry and we’re likely to be asked to cut back of water usage soon, as we are most years. It’s impractical and insensitive to the environment to try to keep everything green. Still, last summer I planted a small lawn, about 10 ft X 10 ft, in the little yard to the right of my house. I rather stupidly added too much mulch to the soil and it drained so well that the grass did not survive. My son and I finally ripped out the remains this week.

My community is in an area that was once seabed, and there is very little soil over the ancient coral. I had added some soil and mulch last year, but it compacted and had to be broken up before we could start planting the new sod. My son and I spent most of the week just hanging out and enjoying each other’s company after two years apart, but I’m not above using free labor when it’s available. Hawaiians call the pointed digging stick an o’o. This one is iron and quite heavy.

We added six huge bags of soil to the resulting mess and turned it over several times to get a rich base for the new lawn.

I chose Seaside Paspalum sod. It’s used for most of the beach parks along the coast and holds up well to the salty air. It shouldn’t require too much watering once it’s established itself.

Since I was working out there anyway, I couldn’t resist adding a red anthurium to the little corner rock garden where I recently planted some pink anthurium.

[tags]anthurium, gardening, Hawaii, lawn, photos[/tags]

May 13, 2007

Lauhala

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Lauhala, Pandanus tectorius

Lauhala trees are popularly used in landscaping in Hawaii. Their distinctive look is very appealing and “tropical” looking, especially their adventitious roots. This is yet nother plant that was probably brought in as seeds by the early settlers of the islands.

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Both the tangled and more orderly root systems are common. Lauhala leaves were one of the materials used for roof thatching in traditional “grass hut” homes. The long, flat leaves are still dried and used for plaiting baskets, fans and mats.

My apologies to the GTS participants that I didn’t get to visit last week. Life gets in the way sometimes. I’m hoping to visit entries from last week and this week over the next few days.

Happy Mother’s Day!

[tags]Hawaii, Hawaiian culture, lauhala, pandanus, photos, trees[/tags]

May 6, 2007

A stroll through the neighborhood

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I was taking a stroll through the neighborhood hoping to take some photos for GTS. I’d gotten several shots of the particular plant I wanted to focus on this week when suddenly my camera died. That’s when I remembered that I’ve been meaning to buy a backup for the battery pack that my camera uses. I’m hoping that I can pick one up later today, but, meanwhile, here’s some photos I took a few weeks ago on another neighborhood walk. That’s Bird of Paradise above, but you all knew that, right?

I’d like to train some stephanotis to climb the fence near my bedroom window. The fragrance blooms at night and is quite strong, so it would provide a lovely scent for me to fall asleep to.

I think this is related to stephanotis. The scent is lighter but similar. The leaves are almost identical, but I’ve never seen stephanotis with a purple throat.

Passing this house always makes me smile. I frequently stop and talk to the husband and wife, who work on their garden constantly. They only have a strip about two feet wide outside of their fence, but they’ve managed to cram it full of color.

Coconut palms were planted by the builder almost thirty-five years ago. Our homeowners association hires a contractor to come in twice a year and harvest the coconuts so they won’t fall on pedestrians and cars. He and his crew climb the trees barefoot and whack the coconuts down with a machete.

[tags]gardening, mixed foliage, Hawaii, photos, flowers[/tags]

April 29, 2007

Papaya

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Shortly after my arrival in Hawaii I had a health crisis that landed me in the hospital for three weeks. I was comatose for about ten days, so it’s the eleven other days I’m going to talk about here. Every one of those mornings there was papaya on my breakfast tray. It appeared with about half of my lunches and dinners, too. Once I was ambulatory I spent a lot of time walking the hallways and soon discovered that there was a refrigerator filled with snacks that patients were allowed to have. Jello, pudding cups, lots of juice and … papaya! I’d had my fill of it by the time I went home, but there are good reasons why health professionals encourage papaya in any diet. Papayas are good for you! They’re a good source of Vitamin C, fat-free, of course, but they are also wonderfully digestable. That meat tenderizer that you use to soften a tough steak? It works because the main ingredient is papain, an enzyme which breaks meat down. Papain comes from … papaya!

Papaya (Carica papaya) is actually a berry and is another food plant that is very popular in Hawaii. Unlike the other plants I’ve posted about recently, it did not come with the early Polynesian settlers. It came by way of Mexico after the western world discocoverd our paradise. The ones seen most often here are the Solo variety, yellow-skinned and pear-shaped with a pinkish yellow flesh. If you have papaya in your local market, they are like to be Solos. I sometime see Mexican papaya here. They’re more ovoid-shaped and much larger (up to ten pounds,) but blander and less sweet, so they’re not as popular as the Solos.

Even after all of these years, I still sometimes want to giggle when I see a papaya tree. They’re funny looking (at least to me.) The leaves and fruit develop at the top of the tree on a spindly trunk, creating a visual affect something like an umbrella. Most of the fruiting trees I see have large bunches of the fruit just below the leaf cap. That’s three separate trees it the photo on the right.

I suppose I could have gone to Safeway or another national chain and taken pictures of perfect papaya for you, uniformly green or yellow, unbruised and unmarked. But I live out in the country and my local market buys from small local farmers that I like to support. The fruit is not always as pretty on the outside, but it’s firm, sweet and juicy inside, and was raised pesticide-free. You can’t judge a book by it’s cover, you know, or a papaya by its exterior appearance. They’re still not my favorite fruit, but I eat them from time to time (they’re good for me!) and these are usually the ones I buy when I can’t find a neighbor giving away an over-abundant harvest.

[tags]papaya, papaya fruit, papaya trees, gardening, Hawaii, photos[/tags]