HAWAI'I GARDENS
Cutting of tabebuia trees
By Heidi Bornhorst
We have many kinds of tabebuia — tecoma and trumpet trees — in Hawai'i gardens today.
These tropical American natives were a great favorite of Dr. Harold Lyon of Foster Botanical Garden. He realized the great potential of these tough, valuable-wooded, flowering trees.
He brought many into Hawai'i and established a nice foundation collection at Foster garden.
Many of the seeds have been collected and grown in other public gardens and landscapes all over the Islands. Many tabebuias grow on public school campuses. Trees like these are a legacy for all of us, and should be carefully protected and nurtured.
We are seeing too much cutting of trees on campuses. This is not a good trend. More trees means less cost to cool the classrooms and less shade for the campus, among numerous other benefits.
One species I have come to appreciate is Tabebuia argentea, the silver trumpet tree. A nice clump of them is in bloom along the freeway near School Street.
This gorgeous blooming tree is part of the landscape legacy at Kauluwela Elementary School. The school also shares this public urban landscape with all of us who travel on the freeway.
This is the most salt-tolerant of the tabebuias. It has thick, waxy paddle-shaped leaves. The flowers are golden trumpets, and they grow sparsely on the tree compared to the fold tree, Tabebuia donnel-smithii. (That is the one that goes solid gold for a few weeks)
Well done in La'ie
We drove out to the country last weekend, a holoholo on the lovely windward side of O'ahu.
We noticed some great landscape improvements along the way that readers may want to check out when they cruise by.
For example, the long process of installing a water line is pau near Hau'ula.
We were very happy to see all the ugly construction equipment replaced with new plantings of hala trees, coconut and tropical almond. We just hope that these will be watered, rebermed and nurtured to help beautify and hold onto our precious coastline.
The ocean erosion is pretty severe on that side, with every full- moon high tide wearing away at the shore.
Hala or pandanus trees, beach heliotrope and naupaka, along with other native Hawaiian coastal plants like kolokolo kahakai, are well adapted to holding onto the sandy land in high surf.
Kudos to the landscape designer and maintenance crew at the Polynesian Cultural Center.
Their parking-lot garden is outstanding. It features well-shaped silver buttonwood trees and the best-trimmed and rounded naupaka and beach 'ilima that we've seen in a long time. Many gardeners, using a power hedge trimmer, make "lollipops," "poodles," or squared boxes of naupaka and other hedge plants that would be far better left alone or stagger-pruned by hand.
The crew at the cultural center understands this concept. Their naupaka and 'ilima kahakai, which are restricted to the space of the planter beds, are contained andyet have natural rounded, flowing shapes.
Well done!
Heidi Bornhorst is a sustainable landscape consultant.
