What does best in your garden?

[Hotzcatz]

Aloha Folks,

Our island is a whole collection of little micro-climates and an idea of what grows best near each area may help folks decide what to plant in their yard. Also, we may be able to help each other out with cuttings, seeds and seedlings.

I'm at 400 foot elevation and up the Hamakua coast near David in Ninole. Things like coconuts, ti, bamboo, palms, avocado, heliconia and bananas seem to thrive here. We get less rainfall than Hilo and probably less than most of Puna but we have more soil to hold the moisture so I guess it all evens out.

The peaches are ripe right now. The cultivar is "Flordia Prince" and it was planted about four years ago. I just got a new cultivar "Eva's Pride" which is now blooming. It was ordered along with a lilac cultivar which is supposed to also be low chill. It bloomed as soon as it was potted up, but it doesn't seem to be thriving yet. Might just be the rain, I've only had the two new ones for about a month.

The coffee trees grow well but the tea bush(camelia sinensis) doesn't seem to thrive very well. It might need more elevation. Grapes and roses do well, but the rose beetles are a problem. All of a sudden about half the pineapples have set fruit. They are planted from tops from store bought pineapples at various times, but half of them seem to be on the same time table now.

The rosemary is trying to become a shrub. It got severely cut back at Christmas and the trimmings made into wreaths. The bay laurel was almost choked by the rosemary, but is still hanging in there. The oregano is doing well but the mint seems to be trying to vanish. The lavender keeps dying. I think it is too wet for the lavender, but one would think the mint would like the moisture. The chives are happy. Several of the orchids are blooming.

Sweet potatoes do real well. Small fruited cherry tomatoes and thick skinned "Roma" tomatoes do well. The others don't set fruit.

I should be out doing yardwork and gardening!

A hui hou,
Cathy

[Cindy V]

WOW Cathy, Am I ever envious! I cannot wait to get there, settle in and start my garden. I'll be at about the same elevation in Leilani Estataes, hope to have an herb garden and tomatoes, but want lots of flowering trees/shrubs set away from the hosue for my enjoyment. Hoping this time next year I can be sending out a similar posting.

mahola for the long range enjoyment of your grarden.

[JerryCarr]

Wow, Cathy. I am impressed. Didn't know peaches could be grown here. We are at about 300 ft elevation in Hawaiian Paradise Park. As I mentioned in another thread, I have had no luck at all with tomatoes, even the varieties you are having some success with. Some friends have suggested growing tomatoes in pots or even hanging baskets, thus keeping them away from the damp ground which fosters fungus disease. I will try that soon. One way we have had some success with dealing with the incessant moisture is using raised beds with loose soil which should drain better. We really didn't have much choice about the raised bed thing because the only practical place on our property for a garden was a very rocky patch of ground, solid in some places and cracked with spotty soil in others. We built low rock walls (about 8 inches above ground level and no mortar) and had soil hauled and dumped in the big beds. The soil we got was pretty decent, but we did add compost to loosen it. So far we have done very well with collard greens, chinese mustard, bok-choi, lima beans, string beans, eggplant, carrots, pineapples, squash, and the same general list of herbs you mentioned. As far as fruit trees, we have limited ouselves to about 10, and most are less than six months in the ground, so I will defer final judgement until later. So far however, the citrus, mangoes, and mulberries seem to be thriving. Have had disease and/or pest problems with papayas and lychees.

Aloha,
Jerry

[Carey]

Just down from Keaau Town on a city lot we have tangerine, navel orange, common guavas, papayas, mango, avacado, white pineapple, bilimbi, kava, cherrry tomatoes bromeliads, a bunch of different ti, a bunch of different crotons, roses, chenile plant, hibiscus, red & pink ginger, palms, a 20' candelabra plant, orchids, "donia" (relative of poinsettia - have not found any info on) and a few other bushes & trees we haven't identified yet. We have a yard that had been well planted in years past, but has not been well taken care of over the last 5 years, so we are cleaning it up from garbage, and neglect. It had had tree fern, and a couple of banana clumps. Our bananas are being hit with the bunching virus (this surprised me, as I thought it was a Kona side virus, but was first found on the Big Island in Keaau). Just a short list of one small yard.
Aloha, Carey

[Hotzcatz]

Jerry, have you had trouble with caterpillars eating the greens? The white butterfly caterpillars have been chewing up my nasturiums (which is actually a sacrificial plant) and going on to eat the kale and lettuce. I don't spray since I want to eat the vegetables myself, but just go out and pick the caterpillars off. I may let the chickens in and see if they eat the caterpillars, but they would probably dig, scratch and cause other problems.

I had some lima bean vines which lasted several years, but all the other types of beans have only been good for several months or so. Don't know why the lima beans lasted as long as they did. The "indeterminate" tomato vines will last that long so maybe they have some "indeterminate" varieties of lima beans.

It sounds like your yard will be lovely when you get it all cleaned up, Carey. It is always nice to get an already planted yard since it takes so long for stuff to grow. Are any of the plants "heirloom" types? Roses have been cultivated for years and the older varieties seem to smell better than the new ones.

A hui hou,
Cathy

[Aki and Laura]

Aloha,

Aloha,

Aki and I live in Vancouver, B.C., Canada and make annual trips to the BI. We have a lot in HPP (10th and Kaloli) that was cleared in February; however, we left all the large Ohia Lehua trees that we could. Building plans are still several years away but we'd like to start with a landscaping plan and plant/establish some ornamental and fruit trees and shrubs - a little at a time - each year. The size of the lot seems a little overwhelming to begin from scratch! I'm very interested to hear what works and what doesn't with tropical gardening. Is there a local gardening club? If not, I guess an informal one has been started with this thread from Hotzcatz!

Mahalo for all the local information and sources that are available in the Puna area.

Laura

[Carey]

Cathy, the house was built in 1973, in a late 1960's - early 70's subdivision with quite a few plantation homes that were moved in. Our 'erector' house was not one of them, being a structural insulated panel home very typical of the early 70's. The plantings were done mainly in the mid-late 70's by the philippino family I bought the house from. Unfortunately, the gardener was the husband, and he died a few years ago. The wife only knew some of the plants, and mainlly by common names she had heard, and I have had interesting web search to ID them (she called bilimbi "sour sap".....as both were new to me I had a time finding out what I had & what I could do with it, finally asked at the market, as many of the neighbors had picked the fruit, willingly). The roses are all smaller flowers, with a good sent, but all had been drastically trimmed a year or two ago, so I do not know if this is a root stock regrowth, or the planted variety (besides, I don't know what the planted variety had been - plus I don't know if most varieties here are grafted... in the freezing north most every rose is a graft). So I am learning....and weeding...and cleaning (isn't it grand today?? SUNSHINE IN THE GARDEN!!!!) Also trying to figure out why the yard has a number of odd conrete blobs poured around. and where the cesspool really is (missed the mark on the county survey). Trying to figure out things like how many papaya, guava, finger palm, bitter melon, red ginger, volunteer tomatoes & tangerines a city lot should have, as they are sprouting up like weeds! (I remember when I would have killed to have this worry in early March!!! or anytime). Still trying to figure out what a lot of bushes are, most seem to be in the Euphorbia family, but that hardly narrows the field. Well,ice tea break is over & back to the garden with me!
Aloha, Carey

[JerryCarr]

Yes, Cathy, I have had problems with those caterpillars. Those pretty white things are actually cabbage moths, and there are a number of ways to deal with them. They used to sell a non-toxic product called Thuricide which contained a benign biological agent which, while harmless to all other animals, kills caterpillars. I have not looked for it here, so it may or may not be on the local market. The chickens would love the caterpillars, but the chickens we had back in Georgia loved the greens just as much and ate them. If you are not totally organic, Sevin is an insecticide which is among the least toxic to humans. I have used it when totally desperate. I don't blame you for not wanting to eat sprayed veggies, but there are different degrees of toxicity involved in treating them. It is a personal choice, and I would not give sprayed produce to children. As far as the beans go, I have also had long-term success with limas producing over and over. I find that with string beans it is a good idea to keep planting new starts among the old vines on a more or less continuous basis to keep constant production going. The recent prolonged rainy spell has caused some of my lima bushes to start rotting, but most are OK.

Aloha,
Jerry

[Lucy]

Cathy,

Would love to be there and trade plants, that would be great to do!

There is a type of cultivar out of California that I have heard is adapted for coastal salt air conditions and warmer weather. I can't remember the name for sure because I haven't looked into it for a few years, but this first one might be it.

Big Sur California lilac

http://www.laspilitas.com/plants/174.htm

Are you in zone 10 or 11? This lilac is 8-10, so it might not work.

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:0BrfKG7zL1AJ:www.ncan.com/nursery%2520notes%2520articles%25202003/mountaingrowing%2520mayjune.pdf+california+lilac+low+chill+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4


Have you tried to grow the purple sweet potatoes yet? Those would be a favorite of mine to try, along with some dwarf mango trees. Then I would have room to try different varieties and some ripen at different times of the year.

Here is Tx. we also do not get the chill hours for fruit trees that is needed. consequently with the poor limey soil, on bedrock that we live on we get very marginal tasting fruit and the peaches and apples trees are not long lived. I did not really like Anna, Einsheimer or the others that I grew and they soon died except I think it was Anna, when mercifully the great flood of 98 took the tree out. It might be helpful to find a company that is growing the fruit trees in a zone close to yours since it would be more climitized and less stressed, hopefully more able to produce well or quicker than ones that aren't. It seems like that might be a major problem with getting them going.

My mom always used to let our chickens out about a half hour before dark, when it was a bit cooler and the bugs would become more active, then too the chickens didn't have time to do much damage but were attracted to the moving bugs and then off to the coop for the might, since they liked to be inside as was their habit and security. They would race around doing their business and then off to the coop. Sometimes more than one of us would have to round them up, which usually was pretty easy. We might have trained them to go back to the coop with a favorite food lure too, like cottage cheese or something, which they would come in for.

Happy Gardening!
Lucy


Having another Great day in Paradise, Wherever that Maybe!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheLanai

[Hotzcatz]

Aloha Lucy,

The lilac which I got from a mainland nursery was grown by the Dave Wilson Nursery folks (although they only sell wholesale) and it is a "Descanso Hybrid" lilac. We are a zone 11 and hopefully we have enough chill hours for this lilac.

I've been doing some research into the minimum chilling requirements for different fruit trees. There aren't that many which do well without winters. Most folks only pay attention to the frost hardiness so that is usually what gets mentioned in the garden catalogs. It can be difficult to find out if they can survive without winterchill.

I don't need to grow the purple sweet potatoes since my neighbor is growing them. Loads of them! Also the creamy yellow sweet potato which is also very yummy! Sweet potatoes grow very well here.

Our soil is very acid and we have to add lime to it. There must be some sort of amendment you can add to the soil to make it more acid? Are your hydrangeas pink? Ours are blue and I saw a dark blue almost purple one the other day.

We also have a flower that changes color according to elevation. If you start in Hilo and drive towards Volcano, you can notice lavender colored flowers on bushes next to the highway. Up past Mountain View, the flowers on the same type of bushes turn a bright dark purple color!

A hui hou,
Cathy