Planting Banyan

[seekir]

My dad was a fan of these monsters and found out he could essentially stick a cutting in the ground and watch it grow. He got some from the Rainbow Falls banyans we loved to climb in as kids and eventually planted what seemed like a harmless little trunk in the front yard in Piihonua in the late sixties—against the advice of virtually everyone who was familiar with the nature of this variety. Two decades later the little trunk was a huge mass of roots with branches spanning the entire yard of the 1 acre lot. The tree dominated the neighborhood and made the front yard a dark shaded place swarming with mosquitoes. Roots protruded above the grade and made mowing quite a challenge. These roots had reached the neighbor's concrete drive and were proceeding to break it up like some mayan ruin. Took several thousand 70's era dollars to hire a professional tree cutter to deal with the massive branches and remove the towering tree which was a mere adolescent. Think twice before you plant this type of banyan anyway, other varieties may be more benign, I'm not sure.