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I'm looking for advice from the community as to what a new landowner should do regarding property borders. I have my own notion of what I should do. I'd appreciate input from the experts. These are my thoughts/assumptions:
1) After the survey is completed as part of the purchase process, I need to take advantage and hand clear my property lines such that I can run strings from pin to pin (either to/from original pins back when HPP came to be, or to/from new pins installed by survey crew where they couldn't locate originals).
2) Depending on my property, if I wish to demarcate my property lines (I do), I'll probably need a D6 or a D9 to clear a swath.
3) If I wish to plant the property line (I do), I've been told I'll need a D9 in step 2 to rip through the blue (if blue there) to make way for later soil.
4) Get soil - move/install soil.
5) Get plants - install plants - advice on plants.
I'd be interested in knowing what plants people think are appropriate for a property line. What sort of mature planting radius and spacing would be ideal for the recommended species. I want minimal to zero maintenance on the property line. At the same time I want something that my neighbors will appreciate and support and a species that makes the neighborhood as a whole look better.
Cheers!
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Some of this is going to be "depends on where your lot is" advice.
Remember, if your lot is anywhere near the more jungly areas, when you rip an area, that area will usually replant with more weedy plants fairly quickly, many of the lots in HPP that were ripped a few years ago in the housing boom now have heavy regrowth, and many are very hard to tell that they were ripped (if they have albezia regrowth, they may need to be re-bulldozed (the normal way to take down the bigger albezias... the wood is so weak very few want to use felling techniques) .
There are some that just jackhammer planting pukas along the border planting line.
Many people plant podacarpus, it grows fast & fills in fairly densely.... but it does KEEP growing fast, so it requires some semi-annual-annual maintenance.
IF you have time to establish, a very nice border can be made with a mix of ti, this can be kept low & full with annual cutback, or allowed to be tall with a trunk barrier. Others will mix in a variety of dracenea or a mix of croton, or clump bamboo (be very wary, as there are very invasive bamboos)
These mixed plant borders have more texture & color, and you can then add in some fruit varieties when you have an idea what you may want... some may comment on the cost of this idea.... but if you have the time, most of these are very easy to grow from cuttings & most everyone I know that has established plants has cuttings available as they maintain their plants (we have a lot of trimmings, as we have small lot & very mature plantings....so if you want... we have..)
No matter what you plant (including a fence) there WILL be maintenance, as stuff grows on just about everything (fun to note the number of road sign posts with vines pouf-ing out from the center of the post).
If you are on-island, drive around the area of your lot & look at what others are doing, you will get a wide range of ideas throughout HPP (and you can even broaden your search around the island for an even greater variety...)
Oh, and one thing to take note of, if you are not on island, opening up your lot border may increase the neighborly use of your lot...unless you plant a thorny thicket as a border.
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And to add on to all that Carey said, each of your steps will be a time consuming and costly endeavor. How many thousands of dollars do you want to pour into this undertaking? It might be easier to have your survey crew make marks/install flags or ribbons along your property line (rather than trying to clear a swath and run a string...), and then look at what you have already planted and mature along that line. Keep the good big stuff and then hand clear out the underbrush and do selective plantings to fill in the gaps. I agree with the suggestion of podacarpus, clumping bamboo and areca palms.
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quote:
Originally posted by beejee
I want minimal to zero maintenance on the property line. At the same time I want something that my neighbors will appreciate and support and a species that makes the neighborhood as a whole look better.
LOL I love your innocence! Yeah, I want minimal to zero maintenance too! Instead I hauled away 37 loads of green waste to the transfer station. Hand cut down dozens of guava and other saplings. And that was just along the perimeter. And yes, my lawn, fruit trees, pineapple garden, and gardenia bushes are well established (decades old) - I'm not including time on those.
One of my colleagues said it best - landscaping in Hawaii is more about weed management than anything else.
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There is a tendency for newcomers to assume nothing grows without dirt (soil). While this may be true for some mainland veggies, look around, East Hawaii is lush with plants that do very, very well with cinder. Even in my greenhouse I use a cinder/soil mix (about 50/50). Cinder may not look like much but in this rainy climate it drains well and is chock full of nutrients which our local plants thrive on. Cinder is cheaper too. Locally red cinder is used for road and walkways and black cinder for planting areas.
Assume the best and ask questions.
Punaweb moderator
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Agree with Carey and Rich.
However, I do appreciate establishing your borders.
We did this on our previous land and it was well worth it, as a couple years after the neighbors tried to build as close as possible to the prop line and luckily we had all our plantings and fencing in.
The absolute easiest but costly is a fence.
Here you can put in hog wire as fencing and it is reliable and lasts. or you can spend the money for cyclone/hurricane fencing. the maintenance is minimal, but the initial cost is a lot.
Our current HPP property was ripped about 2 years ago. We so far have had to bring in 60 yards of cinder soil to plant ONE side border.
We planted above ground beds rather than digging into the lava. We have clumping bamboo, areca palms, ti trees and hybiscus along that one border we have done. It was very expensive and time consuming.
Radius: We planted the long raised beds about 5 feet wide with about 5 feet behind it to the neighbors cyclone/hurricane fence so we could walk along and tend the beds from the back side.
Maintenance: the plants so far need no maintenance. The weeds and grass growning up all around them is awful and this is under mulch, lots of mulch.
Good luck with your new land. Congratulations.
hawaiideborah
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The day we moved into our house, the people from Oahu who own the lot next to ours showed up, they hadn't seen it in 15 years and were shocked to discover that their grassy distant ocean view lot was now a dense jungle of towering albezia, thick guava, and trash trees. The parts that had been left alone are still medium sized ohia, the rest is impenetrable.
Disturb as little of what is already there as possible until you are ready to develop your lot, and then disturb it as you go. That will minimize the invasion of rapid growing species you don't want, and those plants invade fast. Undisturbed land doesn't change much in terms of vegetation, but once you open it up with a bulldozer all sorts of things move in, including people dumping rubbish and dead cars and dead pigs. We saw it again and again when land shopping. People would buy a lot, bulldoze a drive and clearing and then go back to the mainland, other people would then use the lot as a convenient dump. Some of it was really disgusting.
I've also seen where that kind of access was used to steal trees by cutting all the ohias that could be reached from the neighboring cleared areas, using the house pad to load up trucks. Friends of ours had their lot in HPP completely denuded of large ohia by someone who used the bulldozed perimeter of the neighboring lot to access my friends' trees.
All through HPP there are lots which were bought, ripped and then left when the market took a dive, they are the ones thickly covered with albezia that are all the same age. Please, please, please, anyone who wants to develop an HPP lot by bulldozing corner to corner, buy one of those lots and leave the native ohia forest lots for people who want to do minimal clearing.
Slight detour of thread:
Rob, where do you get your cinder/soil mix?
Carol
Carol
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
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quote:
Originally posted by csgray
Rob, where do you get your cinder/soil mix?
Carol
we got our cinder soil mix from Sanford. We were very pleased with the mix. The plants are real healthy and love it.
Sanford drivers were willing o dump several smaller piles along the long border so we didn't have to move the soil as far.
hawaiideborah
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Sanfords also delivers the extra big load, which is awesome considering that we have to pay so much for delivery around here. Their prices are usually best too.
Melissa Fletcher
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Thank you all for the great replies and advice. I appreciate it. I do have some small and medium albezia on the property, but not on the property lines as far as I could tell. It was difficult to tell for sure though without the borders being marked/staked. I'm definitely planning on leaving as much ohia as possible. My goal with the borders is twofold. On the one hand I'd like vehicle access around the perimeter, and on the other hand I'd like to establish some privacy. I'm not really a fan of traditional fences, I much prefer a vegetative border. Hence the questions. My intention is certainly not to clear the whole property - minimal clearing is the goal first and foremost. As recommended, I think I'll start with small selective hand clearing on the borders and start some plants filling in the gaps. Then when I get over there and start building (hopefully SOON) I can start working on the access piece.
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