Choice of tree landscaping on raw lava

[dobanion]

For a lot with nothing but pahoehoe, what'd the group recommend for trees? Will be busting holes with an excavator and filling with soil/compost/cinder before planting.

Some of my current contenders:

Samoan coconut
Triangle palm
Areca palm
Ironwood
Cook pine

[Chas]

Definitely NOT ironwood!

How nice is the Pahoehoe? I'd try to preserve it personally. It's one of the unique landscaping features of Hawaii.

[Or1on]

Hah, yeah why ironwood?  What's your thought process there?  If you're going to put a tree in that doesn't produce and fruit or nut for you, why not just put in ohia trees?

Maybe stuff you would find in a desert?  The cactus that gives you napales and cactus pears?  Dragonfruit?  Date palm?   I know pineapples aren't trees but they need very little to grow on and are quick to produce.

[kalianna]

If you're in a rainy area, I would plant fruit trees, not palms. Palms are messy. We have to haul away numerous 20' fronds on a daily basis. I'd go with avocados, mountain apple, star fruit, ulu, brazilian cherry and bananas. Beautiful and useful.

[Durian Fiend]

Coconut, breadfruit, jackfruit, citrus, avocado.

You want big trees fast? Jackfruit will do that. For non fruit trees, I'd avoid ironwood and the pines. Maybe eucalyptus, ohia, possibly some other native species.

[dobanion]

Hey folks, don't beat me up on the ironwood. It was just a thought.

Few reasons, since ya'll asked:

1. I grew up on Oahu and Bellows beach was my childhood beach. A huge stand of ironwoods between the beach and the parking lot sticks in my memory. I liked the shade, the sounds of the wind, and the bed of soft needles underfoot.
2. They are free. Keiki ironwoods all over the place if you know where to look.
3. Grow fast
4. Windbreak
5. Shade
6. Looks like a lot of deliberately planted ironwoods in the neighborhood already.

The idea of preserving the surface of the pahoehoe and just putting a cabin up on it and laying down walking paths with cinder is.....food for thought. Certainly cheaper than calling in the excavator.

Cleaning up palms all day long, I'll consider myself warned.

Bananas and pineapples are a nice idea.

[kalianna]

You may want to have the excavator dig you some holes. Otherwise you'll have to put in enough dirt to get the trees going until they can find their way into cracks in the lava. I've seen people do this with a few tires filled with dirt. If you can afford to get the holes excavated, the trees will grow faster and have a nice cozy home to thrust their roots into the ground.

[Chas]

...preserving the surface of the pahoehoe ... cheaper than calling in the excavator.

Cheaper, easier to maintain, and it will look better. Once you rip a lot, all you do is open it up for all the weeds to start growing.

[dobanion]

I'm hearing you folks. Thinking of holding off on the excavator. May just rent a jackhammer and compressor to make a few smallish pukas for plantings. In light of this, I'm leaning now with:

Pineapple
Coconut palms (normal ones)
Papaya
Bogainvilla
Ulu (x1)
Noni
Plumeria (x3, by the road)
Banana (actually plantain, if I can find)

[Or1on]

I can envision your place now.  Beautiful with the black lava and cinder paths in between your trees and plants.

Always a good idea to plant the trees the native Hawaiians grew.  They grew them for a reason.  They do well here.  So nod of approval with the breadfruit and the banana.  Noni doesn't seem to need any encouragement as it is often one of the first to grow on pahoehoe on its own without human help.  Banana however needs lots of wet dirt so it needs to be a mighty big hole broken into that lava filled with rich organic material.  Plantains are great and can be found but are subject to bunchy-top virus just like the rest of bananas are.  So if you don't give the banana the absolute best growing environment it becomes more susceptible to the virus.

Like the pineapple, papayas do well at low elevations are are quick to reward you with fruit.

Note on the bougainvillea:  
   Many are enamored by their beautiful leaves in various striking colors.  They require trimming to maintain that neat bush shape and they tend to be viny and will turn leggy, reaching for other tall trees to climb.  One was planted on my property 40 years ago.  It got forgotten as it doesn't produce any food and vined its way up a robust autograph-leaf tree.  (don't ever plant one of those trees but that's a separate story)  Fast-forward to 5 years ago, I got tired of stepping on 2 inch thorns that dropped often from the dead twigs of the Bougainvillea.  Those go right through flip-flops and even some shoes.  I took a chainsaw to it and even today still some petrified thorns are falling from the dead branches stuck above in the autograph leaf tree.  The bougainvillea branches rot and get soft but the thorns don't.  Evil, just plain evil little weapons.  Took months for one of the puncture wounds in my foot to heal.  Went so deep.  So if you do plant it, mind the location.