HAWAI'I GARDENS
Plant early if Lei Day blooms are goal
By Heidi Bornhorst
Q. Can you encourage your readers to start growing lei plants in their gardens now for Lei Day, May 1? It doesn't have to be all natives; there are lots of great flowering plants you can grow.
— Mahalo, Brian Choy
A. I think that our readers will be so happy to know a prize-winning lei maker like you is thinking of them and their gardens.
Readers, if you are planting annuals from seed, plant sparingly because you need only a dozen plants. Once they are blooming, use flowers or de-head old blossoms to prolong the life and blooming quality of annual flowering plants.
If planting six-packs or four-inch pots of annuals from garden shops, plant a month before you need the flowers. The potted plants are already mature and blooming and therefore will not grow much more. Select annual plants, which are just starting to bloom.
Plant the annuals in large pots to accent your home. Again, use the flowers in lei or de-head.
Use slug bait to control slugs. Slugs love to munch on all kinds of plants, and this wet, fertile winter has made good eating in abundance for the slimy critters.
Once plants such as cup-and-saucer and bleeding heart are well established and quite large, prune the old flowering stems to encourage new growth and flowers.
You should be able to always have some of these flowers blooming and ready to use in a lei.
Natives for lei making
'Ilima is a nice plant to start with if you have the patience to string the 600 to 1,000 blossoms required for a lei.
You can also insert 'ilima budlets in a lei wili. It is easy to grow in hot, dry, sunny gardens.
It will be a long-lived, nice plant, even long after May Day has passed.
'Ohia lehua, Metrosideros polymorpha, is a must for lei gardens. It is a most beautiful and cherished plant to grow.
The secrets to growing 'ohi'a are to prepare the soil well before planting and water well every day.
Lots of garden shops carry ohi'a plants, or you can grow your own from seed for a Lei Day a few years in the future.
The variability of seeds in ohi'a lehua is simply amazing.
I have a tree that I call the "Misao sunrise." Growing underneath it is a very nice flowering but scraggly tree with orange flowers. I also have some strong, nice reds.
The Misao tree seedlings are three years old and flowering. One is just like the mother tree: silver buds unfolding to reveal deep yellow flowers with a nectar-cup lined in orange eyeliner, pushing the silver bud fuzz to the background. Two seedling are vigorous trees; one is an orange and one is a brighter shade of yellow.
Native ferns such as palai, pala'a and kupukupu are all nice for gardening and lei making.
They tend to do better in shady upland gardens with rich organic soil, but if they are well nurtured you can grow them anywhere.
Plant them near the hose bib and front entry so you are reminded to water them often.
Heidi Bornhorst is a sustainable-landscape consultant.
Submit questions at islandlife@honoluluadvertiser.com or Island Life, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802. Letters may be published or distributed in print, electronic or other forms.
