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+--- Thread: Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries (/showthread.php?tid=7228)
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Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries - hpp4me - 04-25-2010
I'm compiling a list of plant sources for fruit trees and palms for an upcoming planting trip this summer. What are your favorite plant sources for fruit trees, spice trees and palms?
Since the trip will be in July, Plant It Hawaii will not be available to us. Their next sale is in November, a time at which I cannot travel.
RE: Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries - csgray - 04-25-2010
Makuu market has more and more vendors selling young trees in grow bags, along with many, many ornamental, palms, vegetable starts and today I noticed a lot of palm varieties too.
Carol
RE: Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries - hpp4me - 04-25-2010
Are these vendors certified nursery professionals from local businesses? I ask because it is important to buy plants from people who really know what they are doing and have selected and inspected their items carefully.
RE: Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries - janeadams - 04-25-2010
Some are, some aren't. I know a few of them are knowledgeable BIAN members, and stock/sell good varieties. Mostly, though, Maku'u won't have as many trees as other tropicals. Rozettes stockes a variety of trees from Plant It Hawaii and others, and they are highly reputable -- can't go wrong there! I'd go there in a heartbeat rather than Walmart, Home Depot or others. Garden Exchange has very few trees as they've not much room. Another thought is a visit to Fruit Lovers Nursery. Oscar Jaitt specializes in unusual fruits, and is very knowledgeable. He no longer ships, but is an excellent source, particularly if you're looking for cool stuff.
Jane
RE: Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries - csgray - 04-25-2010
We bought a bunch of Plant It Hawaii fruit trees at Makuu a few weeks before their last sale. I think the guy doing the selling was one of their workers making some side money. Many of the vendors are not "certified nursery professionals" because their operation is too small to afford the fees, but often they have been growing these plants here for many years and are knowledgeable about their stock. With plants experience can easily trump credentials.
My husband is a former nurseryman and certified arborist who knows his plants, and we have heard some absolute BS come out of the mouths of "certified professionals" who were just trying to make a sale. Certification often can mean someone paid the membership fees and sat through some "professional development" seminars or took an online course designed for the mainland.
The plant vendors at Makuu are mostly long term members of the community who have no interest in steering people wrong. If they can't tell you the name of the plant and it's best growing conditions, think twice before you buy it. If they haven't being growing and selling plants for very long in Hawaii, decide if you should walk away. But Puna (especially HPP) is full of small scale growers who are selling good stock they raised themselves, not just imported and moved up to bigger pots, as so many commercial nurseries do. Commercial nurseries also often order plants sight unseen, the seller packs a tractor trailer and the receiving nursery has to take all or none of it, so there really isn't a lot of picking and choosing going on.
I would agree on Rozette's quality, and they really know HPP's micro climates.
Carol
RE: Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries - lquade - 04-25-2010
garden exchange will get you anything they dont have, pretty fast and most fruit trees come from either plant it hawaii or royal palm enterprizes. also paradise plants carries alot of nice trees.
if you have a chance to get a tour of floribunda palms you will be overwhelmed, as is austins nursery palms both in Hawaiian acres and members of the big island palm society. i do occasionally get plants out at makuu but also find vendors that really dont have the correct answers, but then.... the island is so full of microclimates it seems you always take a bit of a chance. also... make sure you dont ask "will it grow here?" when what you want to know is "will it produce fruit here?"
RE: Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries - hpp4me - 04-25-2010
Thanks, everyone! Great info!!!
RE: Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries - robguz - 04-26-2010
No need for the Plant it Hawaii sale. I think Rozette's will special order for you from them. My favorite nursery on the island is Anuenue Gardens south of Kona. They have the best variety of fruit trees I've seen on the island, including some hard to get trees. The last time I was there they were very helpful and urged me to call them with questions, even if I buy trees elsewhere!
RE: Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries - KeaauRich - 04-26-2010
We bought a bunch of baby palms from Jan Anderson's Kapoho Kai Nursery at the BAIN sale and then got lots of mature palms directly from her nursery in Kapoho - I'd recommend a visit to her place too. Her email is tidepool@hawaiiantel.net
RE: Your Favorite Puna/Hilo Plant Nurseries - Jay Bondesen - 04-26-2010
We bought from Jan a couple of years ago, Kapho Kai nursery, and she has lots of different types and sizes of palm trees as well as quite a few other things. She also offered, at that time at least, to come out to our place and for a fee name everything on the property. That might be interesting for people who bought existing landscaping and wondered what some of it was. It's not a regular retail shop so you either need to see a little sign up or contact her before heading down there.
Jay