Puakahi, Oahu

On Halloween, I arrived in Honolulu for my two-week work/vacation.  My first night in Hawaii, I was fortunate enough to be a guest at the home of the local landscape architect with whom I was collaborating.  Despite the jetlag, the first order of business, upon arriving at his and his wife's home, was a quick tour of their garden, accompanied by their sweet dogs.

The site rambles down a hill on the north side of Oahu, and grass paths were terraced out of the slope.  

When the path changes direction or pitch, these intersections are punctuated with fountains, significant trees or other garden follies.

Since the grade descends behind the house, the bedrooms are on the ground floor and open out to the pool terrace.  Above, my wonderful hostess smiles out from the living/dining area balcony.

A small pool structure is perfect for a drink or a poolside meal.

Balinese columns support planters of orchids.

The view of the pool and the harbor beyond from the upper balcony.

This property is made available for rent for Hawaiian vacations or weddings,  You can find more information here: http://www.puakahi.com

Na Pali Coast, Kauai

As I mentioned last week, after my work in Lanai wrapped up, I visited Kauai for four days and three nights.  Kauai is the oldest of the Hawaiian islands and thus the greenest.  In fact, it's called the garden island.  A stark change from the dry climate of Lanai and the Big Island,  Kauai typically receives rainfall and is inhabited by lush landscapes.  And by feral chickens.  Seriously, so many chickens. I have yet to see 'The Descendants' - appearing in theaters now - but I will be sorely disappointed if chickens don't have as much screen time as George Clooney.  (Obviously, George Clooney is a better screen presence - the chickens are just a great realistic detail to include.) 

Anyhoo. Speaking of movies, perhaps on a long shot, you saw 'A Perfect Getaway' with Timothy Olyphant, Mila Jovovich and Steve Zahn?  It's one of those action-y, suspense movies you could kinda watch for the third or fifth time on a lazy Saturday morning.  No chickens, but the Na Pali coast is featured pretty faithfully.  Which brings me to today's post.  (Finally.)

Na Pali Coast State Park is a 6000+ acre piece of land on the north shore of Kauai.  One of the most popular hikes is a 4 mile (round trip) hike to Hanakapi'ai beach. As you can see from the above pic, the hike is at times very, very muddy.  I felt badly for those without hiking boots, especially people who were absolutely destroying their bright white running shoes.  (But then again, a hike like this is well worth $100 or $150!).

The beach is only accessible by foot or boat and is devastatingly beautiful.

This hike was so much fun.  It was challenging, between the mud and some rocky areas, you do have to be somewhat mindful of where your foot lands.  Because of the level of difficulty, if you start up early enough in the morning (easy for those of us with jetlag), the trail isn't too crowded.

I think I'll be putting together a top five list about Hawaii before the year is out.  This hike is definitely on that list.

New Pics from the Honolulu Moderne, nee Edition Waikiki

Last year, I was able to work (at Deborah Nevins Associates, with Ian Schrager Company and Yabu Pushelberg) on the Edition: Waikiki hotel in Honolulu.  I spent about four weeks on site doing construction administration, which was an absolutely (stressful) great time.

Last week I got to revisit the site (now operated as an Aqua property.  That's a long story.), and see how the design is faring.  I was delighted to see everything looking good.

The Alexander Palms (Archontophoenix alexandre) look great, as does the beach morning glory near the pool (we originally used plumbago, which didn't handle the chlorine spray well). 

On the lower pool deck, the autograph trees (Clusia rosea) are faring beautifully, despite relatively petite planters.  The maintenance team will need to regularly root prune them now, however.

It was so fun to have a Mai Tai on the pool deck that I first saw as a raw concrete slab with CMU block planters.  The shot below is during tree placement in April 2010.

This is the same view from last week. 

Seriously - what a fun job it is to be a landscape architect!

Triangle Palm

As you may know, I was working in Lanai, Hawaii for the first week of November (tough gig).  The second week, I spent traveling.  Over the past two years, I've been fortunate enough to spend a total of eight weeks in Hawaii; I had visited Lanai, Maui, the Big Island and Oahu.  This trip, I made a point to spend a few days in Kauai.  Kauai is the oldest island and thus the greenest, which made it a refreshing change from the drier climate of Lanai.

While in Kauai, I went horseback riding at Silver Falls Ranch, a great place near Hanalei.  I took a private ride so my guide and I could canter and trot (though I was still a little too cagey to all-out gallop!).  Somewhat spoiled by all my Hawaii travels, I didn't feel the compulsion to stop and take photos during the ride; I wanted to just enjoy the moment, not to mention I must have THOUSANDS of pics of Hawaiian landscapes by now (and am not near finished sharing them with you all, either!).

However, I did have to stop a take a few library shots of this unusual palm: Dypsis decaryi, or triangle palm (not to be confused with triangle man). Dypsis has long fronds with leaves ascending from the main stems.  These fronds emerge from three points, forming a triangle. Native to Madagascar, the plant is popular for its odd shape.

I'm not sure I'd use this in a landscape design, though the bluish tint of the foliage and the shape is kinda fun to look at.  It is just so odd; I feel like seeing it takes you out of the moment, like seeing a mega star take on a cameo role in a movie. Botanical stunt casting, perhaps...

Strelitzia nicolai and the Japanese White Eye

The Saturday before I left town for Hawaii, I met my students at Brookside Gardens.  If you remember, Saturday the 29th was snowy, sleety, rainy and cold.  To wit, we covered some plants in the conservatory.  One of which was the giant bird of paradise, or Strelitzia nicolai.  While looking at it, we wondered what kind of pollinators would frequent it, and its relative, the regular bird of paradise, or Strelitzia reginae.  We suspected perhaps birds, due to the large, perchable flower and in the case of S. reginae, the parrot-colored flower.

While it's not certain that this bird, the Japanese White Eye, is the primary pollinator, its relationship here is pretty clear.  The bird, also known as Zosterops japonicus, is an introduced bird to Hawaii, originally brought to the islands with the good intent of using it to control populations of destructive insects.  As you can guess, this did not work out too well and now the bird is a vector for avian diseases that affect the native bird species. 

Back to the plant -- this may look familiar -- in fact the plant is very similar to traveler's palm, which I blogged about on NYPAOS.  Aloha!

Aloha!

Please excuse the delinquency of this post!  I've been traveling and have been taking TONS of pics.  I just need to organize and post them. 

I'm working in Lanai at the moment, doing some consulting work, helping a community develop strategies to be "greener" (i.e., cutting back on irrigation, using more natives, etc.).

In the meantime, I saw this rainbow, shortly after landing in Honolulu!  Aloha!

Rhapis excelsa

First of all, spring is absolutely here.  Thank goodness.  First of all, last Friday, on an afternoon run by the Potomac, I saw this:

How wonderful to finally see bulbs sprout.  Then on Saturday I met my students at the USBG and spied Galanthus, Crocus, Hamamelis, Abeliaphyllum, Jasminum nudiflorum, Helleborus, Iris reticulata and a new plant that I'd never seen before, Edgeworthia (more on that later). 

But before we completely abandon the tropics for the season a final post, courtesy of my aunt: Rhapis excelsa or lady palm.  My aunt sent me the photo above and it was a sure bet she was shooting Rhapis.  The plant is native to China but was first popularized elsewhere in Japan, since the plant can handle low light levels and indoor environments.

We used Rhapis as a hedge at the Edition: Waikiki.

That's me, running quality control (smirk) on the plants we got for the hedge.  As you can see Rhapis spreads by sending up new shoots and though the plant is in the Arecaceae or palm family, many think it looks somewhat like bamboo because of this habit.  

My aunt sent this shot above, too and it demonstrates well the effects of high levels of sunlight on the plant.  If the plant gets too much light, it yellows (that's because the sun is basically overcooking the chlorophyll in the leaves, it's not because the plant has become chlorotic). Getting a deep, rich green hue is important to Rhapis growers.  In fact, a nurseryman in Waimanolo told me he fertilizes the plant with chicken droppings which works very well.  It probably can be left unsaid that the nursery itself had an unbearable stench!

 

It's quite possible the leaf in this gate detail at Park Guell is of a lady palm.  The plant became quite popular in Europe  during the Victoria era and Park Guell began construction right at the end of this period.   Rhapis is derivative of the ancient Greek work for rod and refers to the sharp shoots on which the leaves are borne.

Palm Decor

I couldn't have spent so much time lately blogging about palms, without including these shots of a shelter at Waimea Valley Botanical Garden.
 

Massive palm fronds (my guess is from the classic Cocos nucifera or coconut) were used to wrap the posts of this lovely but simple shelter.

It's hard not to look at this and begin fantasizing about my future home in one of the more remote corners of Oahu or the Big Island. Such a nice way to decorate and bring the palms inside.  

Carica papaya

Perhaps one of my favorite fruits is the papaya.  One of the things I miss about New York is the ability to pick up a container of cut papaya at any bodega.  It's not quite as thrilling as having access to all that fresh pineapple in Hawaii (as I recently blogged about), but it's good nonetheless.   

The specimens above are growing in a food garden at the Honolulu Zoo.  You can see that the stalk is self-cleaning, dropping its large, lobed leaves as the plant grows upward.  The fruit are cauliflory, which means they grow directly attached the stem.  Papayas when unripe, like the ones above, are often used in cooking, particularly in Thai cuisine (though the plant is native to Mexico).  When ripe, the fruits turn yellow and have a deeply sweet (cloyingly so, to some) flavor.

Carissa macrocarpa

Carissa macrocarpa or natal plum is a plant you're likely to encounter in the tropics as it's unusual in fulfilling various purposes.  One, it's quite thorny and is often used as a barrier.  Two, it takes to pruning very well and can be trimmed into a hedge shape without much trouble.  Three, it's absolutely salt and wind proof.  If you've ever been to the Halekulani in Waikiki, or walked past the beachfront restaurant, you've passed a manicured hedge of  Carissa.

Finally, reason number four is the plant is quite attractive, as far as somewhat stiff hedge-like plants go.  The pinwheels of white flowers look almost like jasmine and are faintly faintly fragrant. 

All the time I spent walking past the specimen at the Halekulani, and damn if I can't find a photo of the plant's habit.  I only have these close-ups from Puerto Rico.  Next time, I promise.

Bottle Palm

Below, a specimen of Hyophorbe lagenicaulis, in Waimea Valley Botanical Garden, Oahu.  Bottle palms are named such for its trunk, which suddenly enlarges at the base, looking much like a bottle.  This specimen, is quite old and is reaching its species height limit of 30-35'.  Most bottle palms have a more obviously bottle-like trunk, because they are usually found in shorter sizes.

Bottles rarely have more than 5-7 leaves on them and they are self-cleaning.  That means that when the frond senesces, it simply falls off, unlike today's earlier royal palm, which has persistent leaves.  The leaf texture is much more coarse, with thicker leaflets.  This does make it easier to appreciate the clear, jade green color of the leaves.
 

A younger specimen of bottle palm is below.  Bottles are endemic to Mauritius Island, where wild stands of this tree are very rare and diminishing. Bottles are however, very popular as container plants due to their small size and striking silhouette.

Roystonea regia, or Royal Palm

Below, royal palms, Roystonea regia, formerly R. elata, line a street in Oahu.  That's a bit of Diamond Head you see in the left background.

After you start to see the differences among palm species, you begin to understand the subtle choices you can make in plant selection.  Royal palms, with their stout upright trunks, create a much more formal setting than a looser, arching coconut palm.  The austerity of this look is enhanced when you consider the regularly-occurring smooth rings that line the trunk.

In most cases, palms like this are maintained and the dead fronds and fruits are removed.  The plant has a close association with bats in its native range of Cuba/northern Caribbean, Florida and Mexico.  The pinnately compound leaves have fine, thin leaflets which create a softer texture than say, the foxtail palm. 

Pritchardia Palms

When I first started working on projects in the tropics, I was intimidated by all that I didn't know about palms.  For a while there, they all looked the same.  But eventually with enough exposure you begin to notice the finer details separating one species from another.  

The very first step in that direction is by noticed whether or not the leaves are fans or fronds.  The way that here on the east coast, when encountering a tree, the first thing we note is leaf orientation (opposite or altnerate?) with palms, noting if it's a fan leaf like the tree in this post, or a compound frond like this morning's date palm, narrows down the possibilities.

The genus in this post is Pritchardia or Pritchard palm, named so after William Thomas Pritchard, a British consul at Fiji during the turn of the last century.  If you pressed a gun to my head (please don't), I would speculate that this is Pritchardia affinis or loulu palm, which can become quite tall (many species stay shorter) and is more common than the other 28 species.

P. affinis is endemic to Hawaii and is registered as an endangered species. There are another 18 species of Pritchardia that are also endemic and all are in decline.  The genus is unusual in that the flowers and fruits occur on the same stalks.  Note the bright yellow flower buds above and the unripe fruit below.

Date Palm

Yesterday, I posted about Datura with some hesitation.  Not because the plant is not worthy of a post, but because it's a summer annual and here we are in the middle of February.  I try to keep this post relevant to the seasons, but this is a tough time of year to find much inspiration outdoors (though now that some of our snow has melted, I have spied some daffodil foliage!).  I'll keep looking for remarkable flora for February, but for the rest of this week, we're going to focus on palms.

Above, Phoenix dactylifera is growing in a Versailles box at Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  Date palms are easy to spot, as they almost look like a Chrysanthemum firework that is slowly drifting back to earth.  The leaves (or fronds) are long and pinnate, with leaflets reaching up to 14".

The shots above and below are at Park Guell in Barcelona.  The texture of date palms are so fine - almost furry looking -- it's hard to miss them.  Date palms have been cultivated since at least 6000 BC and they are thought to be native to the middle east.  Though it's hard to know for sure since they are now found in any tropical or Mediterranean climate.

The plants are dioecious, which means there are males and females.  Obviously, only the females have the wonderful edible dates.  I must have had dates on the brain this week, since just yesterday I had a terrific salad -- arugula, dates, ricotta salata and walnuts.  Delicious.

 

Above, date palms in Oahu, Hawaii. As you can see the crown or head of the palm works its way up, leaving dying and dessicated leaves further down the trunk.  Often these are removed manually as part of the tree's maintenance.

Neomarica

To me, one of the most striking perennials in Hawaii was Neomarica northiana or walking iris.  Clearly the plant resembles Iris, what with its flower structure of standards and falls.  Though it's distinguishable from Iris because a plantlet develops around a newly pollinated flower.  At this point, when the leaves begin to grow from the base of the old flower, it becomes weighed down and eventually falls to the ground and develops roots.   Thus the name walking iris.

Marica is the name of the Roman water nymph who lived in the River Liris.  Neo simply means new.  

Heritiera longipetiolata

Yesterday's post about pineapples made me miss Hawaii. At this point, it looks like I may not return for a few months which is frustrating (particularly during this snowy, rainy winter!).  So to get me through the cold days, I thought I'd post a few pics from my travels there.

 
This grove of trees, when viewed from afar, don't seem particularly spectacular. But when I took a closer look at them (growing at the Waimea Valley Botanical Garden on the north shore of Oahu), I was enchanted by the network of buttressed roots.

The plant is Heritiera longipetiolata, and is endemic to Guam.  The plant is also highly endangered.  Though it is one dozens of websites due to its status as an endangered species, the information is somewhat scant on details.

The etymology of the genus name isn't very telling either.  It's simply named for Charles Louis de Brutelle L'Heritier, a French botanist, who also named Eucalyptus.

The species name however, should be fairly obvious.  Longipetiolata simply means long petioles.  And as you can see from some of the pictures, this indeed is true.  The plant has petioles that are as much as 2" long.