HAWAI'I GARDENS
Plant your vines in sun-lit ground
By Heidi Bornhorst
Q.My sister took seeds from a stephanotis vine from Makaha to New York, where she lives, and planted them. They have become beautiful, healthy vines. She brings them indoors in the winter and sets them outside in summer. In the four or five years she has had them, they have not bloomed. Can you tell me why, and whether there is anything she can do to promote blooming?
— Deena Luther
A. Stephanotis are already blooming in sunny gardens here in the Islands. The key word is sun.
The more sun you can give flowering vines, the better. Like many tropical vines, they also like room to move their roots in the ground. The roots like to spread and seek out water and nutrients. If the plant is in a pot, it won't get as big or flower as profusely.
Stephanotis, or pua male, as we call it in Hawai'i, is also called the marriage flower because it is so popular and fragrant for weddings.
Stephanotis is native to Madagascar and is a less-thirsty plant. It is related to hoya, the wax vine, as well as many other choice flowering plants. Many stephanotis plants in Hawai'i have set fruit during this wet and wild winter.
The seed pods look like small, green potatoes hanging from the woody vines. Inside are hundreds of winged seeds. If you want to grow them, watch the pods carefully as they crinkle a bit, start to turn brown, and suddenly split open to let the seeds blow away.
If you don't have time to watch the pods every day, pick one as ripe as you can, place it in a brown paper bag and watch for it to split open. Those seeds will be a lot easier to catch and grow.
Blooming combos
Bougainvillaea, in combination with kolomona, or scrambled-egg bush, is pretty along the freeways and streetscapes.
The orange bauhinia is an attractive, frequent blooming, orange-flowered shrub with a vining, draping habit, perfect to cover ugly concrete or graffiti-prone walls.
This looks great in combination with the silver trumpet tree.
I also spotted the first golden trumpet tree that is in bloom, along the freeway in Kaimuki. I thought this meant they would all burst into bloom soon, but so far it is the only one.
Keep your eyes open for this pretty, bright, gold pom-pom flowered tree from tropical America. It does well in local gardens and streetscapes.
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.
