"Selective" Bulldozing

[wildemoose]

Is anyone familiar with the rental store (epuipment)..what type of eqip do they rent, etc. We are contractors/operaters and plan on doing most of the work ourselves.

[Hotzcatz]

If you are planning on building on your lot don't spread cinders in any areas you plan to pour concrete or you will have to remove the cinders before pouring concrete.

[janeadams]

Probably the most expedient thing to do is only bulldoze the area where you are going to be building house/garage or anything that needs to be perfectly level. I have driven by a beautiful place in HPP that completely landscaped their lot with the natural lava left in place.

Up here in the Kaohe Homesteads, we have lots and lots of rock in the "soil" -- probably 75% rock. We use the technique described here -- dig minimial hole, use rocks piled around to create a planter, and heap the soil or cinder soil around the exposed root ball. The only thing we try to dig actual holes for were our citrus trees. Work with the rock as a landscape feature, use raised beds of improved soil for things, and only minimally bulldoze.

Bless you for wanting to protect those trees! We have very few native trees on our 5 acre place, and are working over time to replace "junk" and weed trees with good natives.

Jane Adams
White Cloud Nursery
www.whitecloudnursery.com

[hpp4me]

It amazes me that the plants will somehow put roots down into solid lava. I'm still having trouble accepting that this is even possible!