Walking back to the house this afternoon, that glorious sweet light was too wonderful to pass up. Luckily I had the camera with me.... Here are some shots on the new road. The Bismarkia was planted 4 years ago from a one gal. pot....
A tour in the sweet light
This is a 'mystery costus'...no name on it but I am told it is a species. Anyone have a clue? The stems and backs of the leaves are very fuzzy...and the flowers are orange. Those cones are about 12" long.
One of Bob's nepenthes...about 20' up.
Have no idea the name of this Ti...I saw it downtown and begged for cuttings...went away with a bunch. I love the light thru the Ti leaves....
This Philo. started out up the tree with leaves about 4" long and about as wide. As it grew UP the leaves got bigger and bigger and BIGger. Now they are HUGE.
Here is one of my favorite beds.
another. In front of the bright red Ti are New Guinea Blacks...
Whenever I have just a small piece of whatever, I stick it on this tree...getting to be like that drawer in the kitchen where I can never find anything!!!
A vireya cultivar named after a friend of mine, Glen Sahara.
Who said pink and red don't go together?
Great pictures, Carol. That Philo is beautiful. I also love Ti plants. I have a couple of red ones, living over the cold winter, in my family room.
Willi'is Gold infront of one of Bob's killer palms (the thorns are not to be believed)...
Oooos, sorry about that.
Brugie...how do they do inside?????
Carol your pictures are spectacular as usual. It must be like living in heaven. I can't wait to see everything!!! We leave in 3 weeks. Everyone is laughing at me about bringing home cuttings. I would try if I though I could get thru customs and airport sercurity.
Jeri
OHHH I love the nepenthes!! I had a whole sunroom full of carnivorous plants before I moved. I miss them so much. Miss Hawaii so much too. So jealous.
Auntie, that first ti is awesome.
Great pictures, Carol.
Wow, I really must visit Hawaii, I have a cordyline fetish!
Beautiful scenes Carol. How is it living in paradise?
Jeri, could you mail them to yourself?
Jeri... Post ofc. right across the street from the Honolulu airport. I mailed coconuts with mailing labels on them a few years ago, before we boarded plane.
Carol you truly live in paradise
If/when you bring back cuttings, you cannot simply mail them to yourself, unfortunately!!!...especially if you live in LA!! or one of the other 3 'forbidden states'. All packages are screened and plants confiscated!!! It is a real bore! Unless you are a certified grower and have a special stamp (I do), you have to take the plants down to Hawaiin Ag. inspection to make sure they have no bugs etc....or that the soiless medium has no real dirt...and wrap your package there in front of them and they stamp it. It isn't a big 'Pother'...kinda fun, actually...you get to meet some neat guys and be part of the local scene. I did it for years before I became certified. You can get it done just before you fly out and then carry the box on the plane.
Jeri..you have d-mail.
Thanks, all, for the nice comments! Thre are times I am simply overwhelmed by the beauty here...and my luck!!! Today a friend is coming over and we are going to 'rig' about 40 orchid cactus in the trees!!!
Carol your garden is huge, lush and beautiful! It must be a joy to be able to see that every day. Great seeing green instead of white...lol. When ever you need more help, let me know.
:) Donna
Carol, Ti plants make nice house plants. Mine have grown about six inches over the winter, so they aren't getting out of control.
Thanks everyone. Pictures don't show the weeds, nor the 16 gals. of RoundUp each time...but you know...wouldn't be real without weeds, would it????
Great to know about the Ti, Brugie. Thanks.
I love that WIllii's Gold Ti; can't wait for mine to get that big (yeah right, like it ever will).
Update: There are winter storms in the N. Pacific which bring nasty 'Kona' winds (SW and W) over the mt. at us. Our trees are braced against the Tradewinds...but their roots are so shallow, they haven't much resistance to the SW winds. Here are two trees that went over (we lost a total of 8)...Louise is where the roots were!!!. Note how shallow the root system is! Under Louise is solid lava and you can see the form of it in the bottom of the root ball. Wild, eh? The tree, Ohia Lehua, is approx. 10" in diameter...one of the oldest...over 100 years old! We cut the bushy top off the tree and then right it with the tractor...often they are saved.
Oh my gosh, that is wild. I'm amazed that it can live on so little soil. I hope you are able to save them all.
I think I will have to visit the Tropical Forum more often!
AWSOME photo's Carol! I've never been to Hawaii, had a few chances the past ten years, but I'm too chicken to be on an airplane that long ... and my husband is a College Prof of Aviation! I like being in the air about an hour or two at the most .... guess I should have done more flying when I was younger!
LOVE that "Killer" Palm .... looks sorta like that Panama Hat Palm, I have one in a little 4" pot. I didn't know any Palm had thorns.
Thanks again for posting all the photo's of your beautiful Gardens!
Lin
I don't know much about palms...that is Bob's area...but I know that the palms from the Seychelles (Madagascar, both?) have developed thorns as a defense against an animal that loves to climb the palms for the juicy tops. We have many that are simply deadly. There is another, called the 'lawyer palm' that sends out a thin vine that snakes thru the mid-storey with good size thorns all over it. Don't want to walk in there as you could get ripped to shreds, literally.
Lin...they make great drugs for being in the air that long!
Lin, I went through a bout of Acute Mountain SIckness when I visited Colorado a year or so ago and it was exacerbated by a 2 leg flight home. So, I too am afraid of long flights now. Recently I did some research and discovered that the shortest flights went from Phoenix to Kona (at least I think that was the airport, I was just checking at the time). We have lots of points with US Air so that is where I was searching. It was surprising to me that there was a big difference in the length of different flights.
Carol, I know Louise is OK . But, when Hurricane Hugo came through Charleston more lives were lost AFTER the storm from people standing in the well of uprooted live oaks. ( No lava here, just a very high water table so the roots go out rather than down.) As the trees were cleaned up they fell back into the holes faster than people expected and some were caught and crushed. The root masses were much larger and heavier than the one on your tree and as they started to cut the tree tops off the trunks snapped and the weight of the roots just brought them down. Scary huh?
Great pics.
I never had any idea the Ohia had such a shallow root system. Kinda makes me wonder why the Ti has just the opposite. I can't even keep them in a decent sized pot bc of the tap root. I just had to re-pot one of my Ti's into a 16" pot. It looks kinda silly, but it's really that big. And it's only 2 years old. I have another in a 14" pot that's already pushing itself out. It's hard to keep these huge pots inside.
Love the pictures! Every time I think living in South Florida is like living in paradise, I remind myself that Hawaii is even nicer.
Is there anything you miss by living in the islands?
keonikale - strange about your Ti growing such big roots! I poke around the ground for a deepish (4") hole and stick them in...and they grow!!! It seems that these Ohia, which are native to Hawaii originally came from NZ and have adapted to life here over the hundreds and thousands of years. It is one of the first things to grab a toe hold in the lava flows in crevices that collect some organic matter. They are very different from their NZ relatives but very similar too.
YES! Everything over here is so expensive...no such thing as 'cheap' wine!!!
I'll try and post a picture of the roots in the last 12" pot. I was shocked how many roots it had grown in so short a time. I might need to lay off the fertilizer. Only the ones I've gotten on the islands have grown this way. The Ti's here on the mainland grow a lot slower (especially the red ones), and don't like the sun as much. My HI Ti's love the full sun.
The Ohia is just one reason I love Hawaii's plants so much. Most every non-invasive plant is an evolutionary wonder in it's own right. Isolated from everything else it became something unique to only Hawaii. Pretty cool to think about. I still can hardly believe the silversword is actually a descendant of the sunflower family. Who'd have thunk it?
This message was edited Feb 2, 2007 1:05 PM
OK, here's two photos of two of the Ti's I just repotted. One was repotted in a 18" pot and the other a 16" pot.
This one is from Hanakapiai Valley on Kauai.
This one's from a cutting I was given on the Big Island. It's my oldest Ti (3 years), and the largest. Check out the tap root... sheesh. I actually started it from a log.
Thanks Carol,
I needed to see that! Any pictures of the jade vine?
We've had a colder than usual winter here. I think we may be warming up quickly though, and have an appoinment to start brigning plants out of the green house.
Love that philo...and the last picture up there with the very tall plant..what is that?
Rj
what a slide show, Carol...............I must come back for more!!