Category: Hawaii

Wild Florals with a Maximust

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By Heidi Bornhorst

Ren MacDonald-Balasia of RENKO did a Floral demo with the GCH on Wed March 13, 2024.  

She likes to use wild, weird and foraged florals, and rare, strange fruit from gardens or Chinatown.

RENKO Floral dragon

This was such an inspiration!  We can all gather florals and foliage from our own gardens, from friends and even from wild weeds.  Weeds can be beautiful.

We don’t have to import florals. Imported materials have a Carbon footprint big time. They also can be the source of harmful alien pests and diseases.

Many imported florals (e.g. roses without perfume) can last a long time, yet they are substantially dosed with chemical poisons insecticides and fungicides.  Since they are not a food crop, they are not heavily regulated. 

Some countries which grow imported florals don’t have the chemical safety regulations that we do, and this poisons the growers and us the consumers.

Read the Book Floral Confidential, if you really want to be informed (and Scared!) by this overuse of toxic chemicals.

And as we say: Buy Local!  Or even better, Forage Locally.  Glean from Local gardens.

The Floral event was at the Halekulani, and I invited my siter Mimi Bornhorst Gaddis.  

As we were getting ready to go, my honey Clark Leavitt said, ‘set me up with a lei needle?’

He had gone on the roof and foraged for pua keni keni.  So romantic. Our anniversary was the day before and he took his nephew Mark to lunch at Kailua Nico’s.

Mimi and I used the valet service at the Halekulani and walked through the flower filled lobby.  

Two women were sitting in an alcove stringing Blue jade lei. “Wow kewl Blue jade!’ I remarked as we walked by (it turned out that these women were our speaker and her helper!)

We went to check in at the Garden Club desk, and as there was no usual flowers on second floor lobby, we walked around. 

There was a woman sitting on a bench. Mimi and I introduced out selves and I gave her a tiare li`I li`i.

Her name was Pam and turns out she’s Ren’s mother, just home to care for her 97-year-oldmother who was a journalist for the star Bulletin.

The first AJA writer in Hawaii!  

Soon the floral fun begins.  

The first arrangement is in a wide tall bowl. She puts in what she called sea tamarind. We were in back and it was hard to see but I’m thinking that doesn’t look like tamarind.  I kept trying to figure out what the orange bouncy floral might be. (Turnsout Harpulia, a common street tree in the Lychee family, Sapindaceae.

sterculia Mexican creeper lei Ohai Ali`i Harpulia AKA sea tamarind

She anchors the branches into folded up chicken wire set in the bowl.  (Oasis is environmentally out.  Mimi and I both have some stashed, just in case)

She then added Sterculia, Skunk tree pods, these are heavy and help to weight the other materials down. 

Ixora is added. We got these at a gas station, Ren remarks.

Mexican creeper, which used to grow in our Makiki garden is draped all around. She calls it coral vine.  

Bombax or shaving brush tree flowers like big puffs of pink added to the flora mix, next the lei she bought at Cindy’s Lei in Chinatown are added, ohai alii and a golden hala.  She cuts and drapes and winds them into the arrangement.

Blue jade lei were added and draped over the arrangement. Such a lovely seasonal Spring beauty from Hawaii gardens!

blue jade and tita Mimi

She scouted for wonderful and strange fruit in Chinatown markets: 

Fruiting Clusters of Longan, rambutan and Salak palm.  Mimi said that they call it SALAT in SE Asia and it’s really ono.  Pretty and scaly in an arrangement. 

She had some nice blooming orchid plants that she bought from Kawamoto orchids in Palolo Valley.  We kind of gasped when she cut the floral stems and put them in the arrangement.  (they would last for a month or more on the plant). But this is what florists do for that wonderful Ephemeral special occasion. 

CONSERVATION: instead of imported, chemically laden treated florals these were gathered in gardens in wild places and in local lei shops.

Such a good message we can get so much from our own Hawaii GARDENS!

Should we use the REAL name of Poinsettias? CUETLAXOCHITL

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By Heidi Bornhorst

The first time I saw the real native name, I went no, WAY too hard to say!  But learning to spell Latin names is not that much easier. So maybe we should practice using the real name.

Break it down and it’s easier to say.  Write it and your brain will remember it.

It is pronounced: Kwet La sho Chel

Sing it! Let’s try and remember and use it.

Just like we respectfully use, and properly pronounce ohelo Hawai’i words, we probably shouldlearn to use the real name.

Not only is it a seasonal festive plant for us (and a big production for our nursery growers), starting in Hawaii about June with little plugs, it is a very special and significant plant in its native Mexico and Central America.

Red is original color, and many new variations now exist. I like the new colors for their novelty, but the rich red is so seasonal and joyous.

In Mexico they were symbolic and were also used for medicine (A special recipe induced breast milk). they are not as poisonous as some rumors suggest. Red and purple fabric dyes come from the colorful. bracts.

The “flowers” we see so brightly are actually bracts, modified leaves. The true flowers are yellow and green and are nestled in the center of the bracts.

For the past few years, I have been buying them from the UH Manoa Horticulture club, to help support and encourage students in the fine art of intensely growing and studying plants.

I love going up to Manoa to buy them and then sharing this growing gift with family, friends, and neighbors.

We also have the old-fashioned hedge type of Cuetlaxochitl in some Hawaii gardens. They are becoming a more rare plant to see. In Foster Village, where my husband grew up, we’d love to see all the pretty tall plants growing in gardens as we drove out to visit his folks. A particular house had green walls and it was so striking to see the plants growing there.

If you see one like this, you might ask the gardener for a cutting to grow. This is not among varieties growers produce today. This hedge type one is more of a perennial and will grow and bloom every year.

Who remembers the old hedge that the Board of Water supply grew along the Pali Highway in Nuuanu?

For many of us this was the true sign of the season.

​These seasonal flowers can last for months if you treat them right. They like light but not baking sunlight. Water them about once a week. Take off any decorative foil. Fill the pot with water and let it drain all the way out. Then put it back with your other Holiday decorations. They may last and stay red all the way to April!

An old gardener trick is to trim them back in the A months, April, and August. This holds true more for the hedge type.

Although I keep them alive a full year, these newer cultivars don’t look great. Nurseries use all kinds of special fertilizer and lighting to get them looking so pretty and perfect.

Poinsettias and Holiday Décor

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By Heidi Bornhorst

DÉCOR! Brightens up a gloomy rainy day. Lights, trees, poinsettias it’s as simple or as complex as you want to make it.

Decorating with, and gifting plants and flowers is fun for gardeners and the plant lovers on our lists. I started looking around my garden for what I can give to whom and totally “Shop Local”. I Love to check out local garden shops for living plant gifts.

POINSETTIAS can last a long time in a pot if you water them correctly.  Once a week carry the pot to the sink (take off the foil) run water and soak the planting media, let it drain and then put it back in its decorative spot.

If you have the old fashioned hedge type Poinsettia growing outside KEEP it! Grow it, and share it, so can perpetuate this kama’aina classic. These are different from the ones the nurseries grow today.

WHITE POINSETTIEA or Euphorbia leucocephala is another outdoor hedge plant that is gorgeous and fragrant! It has many fun common names like Snow on the mountain, Puno puno, Flor de Nino, White-laced Euphorbia, Snowflake Euphorbia, Pascuita, Snows of Kilimanjaro, and Little Christmas Flower. Sometimes you can find this in pots as well, but it really is most glorious grown in the ground.

LIPSTICK PLANT OR ACHIOTE this old fashioned kama’aina favorite comes in at least three colors: red, super bright red (my fave) and yellow.  The fuzzy pods are attractive when fairly young and they keep well as a cut flower arrangement.  The more mature ones are good in a dry arrangement, and most fun of all are the red coated seeds.  You can make achiote oil for making true Spanish rice and other gourmet treats. Rather than red food coloring or other dyes, grow and use the real thing.  Easy to grow from seeds, cuttings or buy a plant at your favorite nursery.  You can see all of the colors at Ho’omaluhia Botanic Garden; they grown on the trail heading down to the lake, Waimaluhia, from the visitors’ center.

KALAMANSI AND TANGERINES both fruit at this time of year and the trees are so pretty and festive.  I especially love kalamansi for smaller gardens and for versatility in cooking, from drinks, to fish marinades to that special acidic citric touch in salad dressings.

NORFOLK or Cook pines can be grown in pots or in your yard. They don’t smell like the mainland ones but they don’t risk importing any new noxious alien pests either and you can get them for free. They also stay green for months and you can treat them like a houseplant for months (if you like!) and as my Mom says, “No needles on the floor!”

Orchids are so decorative and make the best gifts. Water them like you do Poinsettias.

Happy Holidays!

Dragon Fruit

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By Heidi Bornhorst

Q: Heidi when did dragon fruit come to us here in Hawaii?  Seems kinda recent to me but one of my gardening writing friends tells me its been here since the late 1800s.

Pls inform

Mahalo

KD, Kahala

A: Like you, I think it’s recent. I know night blooming cereus, a relative of dragon fruit, has been here for a long time and has an interesting survival at sea/ revival by Horticulture story. So, I did some digging.

Ken Love, one of my go to Fruit experts, informs me that yes, it’s a recent arrival to our shores and gardens.

Love says that Greg Adams brought them from Vietnam in the late 60s or early 70s. Since then others have introduced cultivars from places like Israel.

They are native to Mexico and Central America where we get the common name pitaya. Now widely grown by masterful Horticulturists and entrepreneurial Farmers in Thailand and Vietnam, we are seeing more in Hawaii home gardens and fruit markets.

There are some reports of it getting here early, maybe by that epic plantsman and translator for Alii, Don Francisco de Paula Marin. He brought us our first mango, grapes and Yellow Plumeria, among many other wonderful plants that now enhance our Hawaii gardens.

I think the red fleshed one is gorgeous especially in a mixed fruit platter. To me the white one is more ono but less colorful and pretty. I’m still waiting to try the yellow fruited one.

Scientists call it Hylocereus.  H. undatas is the white fleshed one, H. roja is the red fruited one and H. amarilla has yellow flesh. All are in the Cactus family, Cactaceae.

They are fun to grow if you don’t mind thorns.  The stalks are heavy and need support on a sturdy trellis or fence.  You get more fruit if you hand pollinate.

We always wonder how nutritious our Hawaii grown fruit are and dragon fruit has some great nutrients.  It is high in lycopene, as are tomatoes and watermelon. It’s a good source of calcium and iron.

Night-blooming cereus or panini o ka Punahou is a kind of cactus. The most famous planting of it in Hawaii is on the rock wall surrounding Punahou School in Makiki.

Night-blooming cereus

The plant, Hylocereus undatus, is from Mexico, where it is called pitahaya. It first landed in Hawaii around 1830 on the brig Ivanhoe, which was carrying plants collected in Mexico. Most of them died and were tossed overboard, and the nearly dead, dried-out cereus cutting looked like a goner, but First Officer Charles Brewer took care of it on the long voyage and planted it in Honolulu.

Dr. Richard Criley of UH Manoa, has been monitoring the night blooming cereus flowering cycles at Punahou school, for about 20 years, and sometimes sees fruit.  Maybe young scientists are hand pollinating them. He contends that hand pollination is needed for them to set fruit here in Hawaii.

They set fruit in Mexico where they are naturally bat pollinated. Our native bats are insect eaters and they are rare.

Its thorny stems send out aerial roots from the nodes or sections of stem. You can grow it from cuttings but watch out. It looks innocent at first but as it grows it can take over your rock wall, climb up slopes or trees, or even up your utility poles and lines.

(This happened at my parents’ home and they were without a phone for three weeks! I told my mom to keep it in a pot, but she is too kindhearted and said, “It looked so cute and helpless in the pot.”)

What will Wild West winds bring? More flowers and fruit?

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By Heidi Leianuenue Bornhorst

We had such a weird windstorm with those super strong and gusty west winds! So different then normal.

Up in our valley we lost power twice to the wind and HECO did not restore power until 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday 3/8/2023.

Mangoes and avocados were full of blossoms, Honohono orchids were in bud and some in bloom.

My Portuguese Madeira roses, and native Hawaiian gardenia Na`u have been blooming well, loving the cool and rainy winter were are finally having.

As I clean up the storm debris, (Mahalo for nature’s Arboriculture) including blown down dead twigs and branches, and lots of leaves, some I notice are from my mauka neighbors.

One of the tenets of true Horticulture is to OBSERVE nature and plants, to track the moon, winds, rain and other weather phenomena as see how the plants respond.

I am still reflecting on how the plants would respond.

What do you see? How are your plants after the winds?

Did you have any big tree failures? Or just small or dead branches?

The leaves are whipped on my gingers, Surinam cherries, mulberries, and ohia shed a few flowering branches. A young popolo plant got totally blasted on one side, it was just coming into fruit.

So, we shall see!

Honohono orchids had been in full glorious fragrant bloom as they budded and bloomed early this year. Originally I thought the orchids stood the wind storm but after a few days those in the main wind tunnel area of my garden wilted and withered prematurely.

Went to a neighborhood watch potluck pa`ina and a nice lady, Lokelani, that I always say hi to on my walks was there, with a gorgeous papale lauhala. She admired my honohono and said she caught a whiff of fragrance, from way across the yard, and she looked for the source of this favorite old time Hawaii fragrance, and from where? My hair!

Since she admired the orchids, I had to give them to her, along with maire ferns!

Now a couple weeks after the winds, I’m observing some of my favorite flowers and fruit trees in my garden and neighborhood:

• ‘Ohi’a lehua  Blooming profusely, some dead wood branches and twigs broke in the winds

• Native White Hibiscus wind whipped leaves, a few blooms at the very top of the tree

• Tahitian mountain apples were blooming before, still many flowers and now small fruit.

• Gardenias surprise early blooms two on one stem, but no other apparent buds yet. (they usually bloom for me in May).

• Na`u, native Hawaiian Gardenia lots of flowers and buds (also triggered by abundant soft rains before the winds)

• Madeira roses Blooming profusely.

• Mangoes my Friend Dawn Shim from Makakilo brought me a gift of Haden mangoes, super early for this to fruit.

• Mulberries wind whipped leaves, lots of young fruit

• Pua Keni keni usually Bloom less in winter, BUT after the storm mine are full of Buds, flowers and lots of developing green “ball” fruit.  I made some lei for a fundraiser, and plucked and cut off all the young fruit, to encourage more blooms from the tree 

What are YOU observing, in your garden in your unique microclimate? I would love to hear back from my Gardening Readers …..

Arbor Day 2022, Brachychiton acerifolium, Illawarra Flame Trees

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By Heid Bornhorst

Heidibornhorst.blog

After three years of lockdown, we are finally, Happily, able to celebrate Arbor Day in Kapi`olani Park once again.

On Saturday November 19, 2022, we will gather with ScenicHawaii, Inc., Kapi`olani Park Preservation society, some Dedicated City tree workers and Arborists, Volunteers, and all of us who love and cherish trees and our Park.

We will be planting and ceremonially mulching four new trees courtesy of the Division of UrbanForestry led by Certified Arborist Brandon Au and DUF/ City and County of Honolulu Parks Department.

Citizen Forester Emily Perry will be representing our busy parks director Laura Thielen.

The trees are drought tolerant and are native to coastal subtropical forests of Australia.

The common name is FLAME Tree, or Illawarra Flame tree. Also called the lacebark tree.

One thing our mentor Paul Weissich, Director Emeritus of the Honolulu BotanicalGardens taught us, is to look beyond flowers when you view trees.

What does the bark look like? How is the truck shaped? What is the growth pattern? What kind of shade pattern does it adorn the ground with? What are the leaves like? Are they good for mulch and soil nurturing? For Keiki art projects?

As we Arborists say, “Touch trees”. Place your hand on the trunk and look UP! What do you see, in the Tree Canopy? I love doing this with keiki of all ages!

When we plant a tree, we are investing in, and finding out about the future. This small tree, grown from a tiny seed and planted today. What will it grow into in the Future?

We can read about the size and growth habits in a book, but how big will it really get here in Hawaii? Will it grow big and strong with proper nurturing and akami tree maintenance?

Will it withstand the abuse that trees sometimes take in public park spaces? Will most people be happy and respect the growing young trees? We sure hope so! Trees ensure a healthy, happy future for all of us.

Known in Scientific Latin as Brachychitonacerifolium, the Illawarra Flame trees are in the Sterculiaceae plant family.

We don’t have many of these trees in Hawaii.  A few grow at Foster and Ho’omaluhia Botanical gardens. These were grown from seed by the Horticulturist and Plant propagators at Foster Botanical Garden.

They are particularly striking when in bloom,with bright red orange or scarlet flowers. The flowers look like a hanging red bell when viewed from the side. If you look directly at them, they look like stars.

The leaves are shaped like a kukui leaf, or a mainland maple tree leaf.  This is what the species name acerifolium means.  Acer is the Latin name for Maple, and folium as you might guess is referring to the foliage or leaves, maple shaped leaves.

The trees will grow up and into a pyramid shapewith a tall, greenish grey, smooth round shapedtrunk. In time they can grow up to about 100feet tall (30 – 35 meters). They are a popular street tree in Australia and around the subtropical world.

The seeds of Brachychiton species are edible. But like many plants in the sterculia family they have irritating hairs, which must be removed or carefully removed to get to the edible seeds. Native Australians ate them raw or roasted. They are nutritious, containing 18% protein and 25% fat with high levels of zinc and magnesium.

There are uses for this tree in its native Australia. Fiber is made from the bark and a kind of gum can be extracted. The wood is soft but dries hard. Shingles, among other things, are made from the wood. The roots of young trees are edible, but let’s not do this in our park!

A related tree, Brachychiton rupestris is called the bottle tree.  It grows a big fat water retaining trunk over time, somewhat like the Baobab tree from Africa.

Mahalo to Wikipedia for some of this info, I also referred to our old standard book: In Gardens of Hawaii, by Marie C. Neal.

“AWAKENING” at the Honolulu Museum of Art, aka The Art Academy

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A Kewl Way To Make Lei

By Heidi Leianuenue Bornhorst heidibornhorst.blog

My friend Lexi Hada contacted me about a volunteer opportunity. When Lexi calls you know it’s going to be a FUN and interesting time!

We joined some fellow volunteers, including some famous Lei makers at 9:00 a.m. at Linekona.

Lexi and Kaylee

I was so impressed with the Volunteers and staff joining with the Artist Rebecca Loise Law and her bouncy fun entertaining husband Andy.

Just being in Linekona is a gift and it brings back memories of other art projects, Classes in Art, wood shows, teaching and learning moments with art and our Honolulu Community.

Rebecca and Andy had asked for flowers which they would dry (in an upstairs room with newspapers spreadout on the floor)

We had brought big bags of floral gifts, tasty treats, and lei that we made to share from our gardens.

The Laws and HoMA worked with the Honolulu Botanical Gardens for a collection of great florals from Foster and Koko Crater Botanical gardens, including Quipo, which is a huge, stout trunked tree from South America, and is related to the African Baobab. The big, winged seeds of the Quipo which we’ve used as intriguing decorations over the years were strung into giant lei for the Awakening art show.

Cup and saucer plant on copper wire for exciting art show Awakening

We were given various dried flowers to work with:

Phalaenopsis orchids

RAINBOW SHOWER flowers

Cup and saucer

Cook pine needles

Sandpaper vine 

Strands of super fine copper wire is used for stringing. We would carefully poke through the flower, like using a lei needle, or wrap the plant material with the fine wire. We spaced out the flowers by making an artful twist in the wire.

Sandpaper Vine

It sounds tedious but the time passed quickly, it was fun to learn a new style, which I likened to Lei making. Andy Law (husband of the artist) came bouncing into the room, and talked to us about the process, Life and gardens in England, Wales, and Scotland. 

Three hours sounded like a long time to volunteer but Andy kept us entertained and the process was fascinating. I was so busy crafting and learning, visiting with the other volunteers and seeing their workmanship, that time flew by.

I congratulate the Honolulu Museum of Art staff for nurturing us volunteers; from free parking, snacks, and working together on such an engaging Floral Art project. There were several staffers to greet and orient us volunteers and Volunteer coordinator Kaylee Clark stayed with us in our lei making session, encouraging us, and sharing about art exhibits and other events at the Museum.

Clark stayed with us in our lei making session, encouraging us, and sharing about art exhibits and other events at the Museum.

Awakening is a year long exhibit in the upstairs L-wing. The Laws have produced these kinds of floral exhibits and art work previously but this is the first time in Hawaii. They brought dried materials and continued the process of gathering and drying flowers from Hawaii.

The main volunteer tasks for this project were cutting and bending of wire along with stinging of flowers. Flower donations came from volunteers. Flowers used each day varied on availability. The process was collecting, drying, and then a 3-day freeze. HoMA tried to keep each day different, as there were a lot of repeat volunteers and they wanted to keep the experience new and interesting. Approximately 250 Volunteers helped from August 16- September 16, 2022.

Andy and Rebecca arrived in Hawaii in early August 2022 and will stay and coordinate the assembly and opening of the art exhibit, which will be up for a year to enjoy.

They have had similar floral exhibits all over the world, including England.

​Artful friends Marin Philipson, Debbie Choo, and Patty Mowat joined Lexi and me.

Amazing long time and Awesome lei makers Joyce Spoehr a HBG Retiree and active volunteer, Iris Fukunaga who still works at HBG (Honolulu Botanic gardens) and Dyanne Taylor a Master lei maker, famous for her tiare bud lei, is another City Parks and Recreation retiree(and fellow surfer) who Volunteers at all the fun plant and lei events. My Friend and great gardener Rosemary was there too. It was so fun to have the master craftswomen there, as we all learned this new technique.

I had so much fun making my lei, first with Phaleonopsis or Butterfly Orchids, then one with red cup and saucer and then with the Lavender cup and saucer. I had never noticed before, working with this as a fresh floral, the different shapes of the dried petals.

Loved the garlic vine flowers for a strand too. This is an old fashioned kama`aina plant that we do not see too often these days. I love the striking lavender color when it is fresh, and it dries very nicely. Seems like the petals are tough enough to hold up

As we completed each long strand (sixty inches measured by the length of our worktables), the lei strands were gently laid into big, long floral boxes, with the layers separated by tissue paper.

The process, of drying the flowers first was something like how botanists and taxonomists, like at the Bishop Museum or National Tropical Botanical Gardens, or even Kew Gardens in the U.K. make dried Herbarium specimens of plants to document and study.

Such a process and so many Na lima Kokua (helping hands) putting the art exhibit together.

As we were wrapping up, the artist herself joined us and we bedecked her with lei and floral gifts. Slender and dressed in black, Rebecca Louise Law looked amazing and happy with our floral adornments. She spoke a few quiet words thanking us.

Rebecca Louise and Andy Law

I thought about what a wonderful team she and her husband Andy make, him warm and bouncy and super enthusiastic, and she reserved and artistic.

Another amazing thing that happened was that the Director of the museum, Halona Norton-Westbrook, joined us to say mahalo, and spoke briefly with us volunteers.

I was talking with my neighbors on their sunset stroll and found that Julia Weiting was also volunteering. Every time she went, they gave her different florals to work with.

I was so inspired after about what I could make next! I also thought a lot about the process and which other flowers or foliage we might incorporate. A fresh style of lei making! A quick and fun one to teach keiki, a way to decorate homes or papale!

I am so excited to see the completed exhibit, called “Awakening.” Its opens to the public on Saturday September 17, 2022, and continues to be on display until September 2023.

Rebecca Louise Law: Awakening

​

Tuberoses for our friendship garden

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By Heidi Bornhorst

The fragrance of tuberose! One of my Mother’s favorites, as a lei of tuberose and yellow roses are what my dad got her for their simple wedding ceremony. She also loved the smell of pineapple, because my dad gifted her with those too!

I like them in a lei, combined with other flowers like roses, carnations or orchids.

Florists carry this fragrant lei and if you grow your own, imagine what flowers from your garden you can combine with tuberose?

It’s an old-fashioned flower.

We used to grow a lot of them here in Hawaii. When I worked at Evergreen nurseries in Waimanalo, in 1978, one of my friends there, was working a second job, harvesting tuberose.

Her name was Estralita, and she was from the PI and recently married.  I think her new family really made her work hard!  At two jobs and at home.  She said they harvested in the dark using headlamps.

She told me that her named meant “star” and how appropriate that she worked at night when the stars came out!

She taught me the saying ‘Mabuhay las Philippinas !!’  Long life to Filipino women!

I wonder what happened to her, as she was kind, nice FUN and hardworking.

Tuberoses remind me of her, and I say a special prayer for her happiness. 

I got some from Estralita back then and grew it in our family garden in Makiki.  It did well for a while and even sent up a flower spike.  But then it got a very bad infestation of mealy bugs.  I treated it but they were too severe, and the plant died. I was sad.

Maybe tuberose does not like Makiki black sand as a potting media? Or it needs cooler conditions. Time to do some research and find out!

​The other day I got an email from my friend Ruth Fujita, another great gardener.

She was offering us, her Budleys, tuberose bulbs. She had a big plant and dug it up, dried out the bulbs a bit and had some to share with da girls.

So, Rachel Morton and I went up there, after a visit to Foster garden to see the Triennial art exhibit.

Ruth shared how she got the tuberose bulbs:

Our niece Tia C. had gone traveling.  She needed omiyage for her epic Aunt Ruth and so in the airport she bought a bulb in a package.

Ruth grew them and was now sharing them with Lynne, Cheryl, Doris Susan Young, Annie, and me and Rachel.

Such an epitome of the Friendship Garden: Grow something with love (and good horticulture!) and then share it with your friends.

With rare plants, this is a Botanic Gardenconcept: Share it and keep good records. If yours dies, you know right where you can get a replacement.

With plants of sentiment like this tuberose, its mainly sharing the wealth and the stories.  But it will be epic for us all to see them grow and Bloom!

People call it a bulb but the roots are actually a rhizome (just like our fragrant gingers)

Fragrant, showy flowers in the late, HOT summertime lead many to plant tuberose bulbs. The scientific name is Polianthes tuberosa, and it also called the Polyanthus lily. It is in the Lily family, LILIACEAE.

Florists and nurseries sometimes “force” tuberose to bloom year round with artificial lighting.  

Tuberose has a strong and enticing fragrance makes it a popular plant in our Hawaii gardens. Clusters of large white blooms form on stalks that can reach 4 feet (1 m.) in height and rise from grass-like clumps.

Tuberose was discovered by explorers in Mexico as early as the 1500’s.  It was one of the first flowers to be imported to Europe, where it was very popular in Spain. 

It likes well drained, compost enriched soil.  It likes FULL SUN especially hot afternoon sun (which not all plants do) 

Plant them 2-3” deep.

In cold regions they dig out the roots in winter.  In Hawaii we can dig them out hand let them rest but not for too long or they will dry out.

There are single and double flowered varieties and now we are seeing them in different colors like yellow and pale pink.