gardening question

[Les C]

Sorry, I don't know podocarpus very well, and actually didn't know the name of this tree/shrub until your post. It's surprising to know but Home Depot has a bunch of native Hawaiian plants in their nursery dept. They even occasionally have the endangered lobelias (I should know which ones, but...). They carry the endangered species by special arrangement with appropriate gov't agencies. But you should be cautious with any plants purchased in areas that have Coqui frogs, as the area by the Hilo HD has, if your area doesn't have them. I think you can "quarantine" your plants by keeping them netted for a little over a week (hatching time for the frogs) to see if any emerge before planting them.

There are a few books on planting/propogating native Hawaiian plants by the following authors, Kerin E. Lilleeng-Rosenberger (Growing Hawai'i's Native Plants) and Heidi Leianuenue Bornhorst (Growing Native Hawaiian Plants). The former is a large volume, 400+ pages, the latter is 78 pages. If you're more of an horticulturist, the larger volume may be best.

As for classes, I just took one at the Volcano Art Center, Know Your Native Hawaiian Plants. I don't know if the East Hawaii Cultural Center or Malama O Puna has them, too. URLs:
http://www.ehcc.org/
http://www.malamaopuna.org/

Oh, the Volcano Art Center will have a class on propagating native plants on Oct. 7th
http://tinyurl.com/qr39z

(I got rid of the ridiculously long URL... sorry)

Les

Edited by - Les C on 08/19/2006 22:25:22