For Kerin Lilleeng-Rosenberger, it's not following any philosophical botanical bent — it's doing what works.

She is among a very small cadre of people who are the modern-day wizards of growing Hawaiian native plants, whether from cuttings, from seed or from grafts and air-layers. Her new book, "Growing Hawai'i's Native Plants" provides gardeners with details for every single genus of Hawaiian plants.

Since the seeds within a genus are so similar, if you can grow one species, the chances are you can grow them all, she said.

What she found, she said, is that once you know the basics, most Hawaiian plants can be readily grown in most Hawaiian gardens. Don't assume that high-country koa tree won't grow in your subdivision — Lilleeng-Rosenberger has a couple growing at her 'Oma'o, Kaua'i, home that's only about 500 feet above sea level.

In her greenhouse, with a few alterations in the amount of cinder or perlite in the potting soil, and moving some plants to sunnier places and others to shadier ones, she found she could grow plants that were home to the highland bogs and to the salty coastline in the same space.

She will use chemicals — such as rooting hormones, used to root woody cuttings — but has found that many Hawaiian plants are sensitive to modern agricultural chemicals. Fertilizer that might cause a store-bought garden flower to thrive could kill a native plant, she said, since many have evolved to thrive in low-nutrient environments.

"I tried everything. I killed many munroidendron with too much fertilizer," she said, referring to an endangered Hawaiian member of the ginseng family. The seeds of munroidendron, it turns out, germinate fine, but you need patience — it takes anywhere from one to six months before they sprout.

"I think you gotta go organic. The native plants don't respond well to the chemicals," she said.

Lilleeng-Rosenberger was a Hilo High graduate who loved plants and started working as a volunteer at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in the late 1980s, under the tutelage of plant specialist Melanie Chapin, who served as consulting editor on "Growing Hawai'i's Native Plants."

The author has no college degree and claims no special insight: "I'm no expert. I just love growing plants," she said.

A year later, the botanical garden hired her under a Hawai'i Plant Conservation Center program to learn more about propagating native plants, and someone told her to keep notes. Field botanists brought in seeds and cuttings from the rarest Hawaiian plants, and dumped them in her lap. Ultimately, she worked with some 800 Hawaiian species.

There was little information available on how to grow these specialized plants, and she said she watched many plants die before figuring out the key to growing each kind. Her work ended with 14 filled notebooks — the seminal details of how to coax life out of some of the rarest plants known to man.

"I had the notebooks, and I wanted to create the book that I needed when I started," she said.

She recalls taking a plant identification course from botany teacher Brian Yamamoto at Kaua'i Community College, and complaining that he didn't teach the identification of Hawaiian native plants. Yamamoto told her it was too hard to find the plant materials to bring to class.

Lilleeng-Rosenberger, who last left the botanical garden and serves now as a resource to other gardeners, recommends residents buy their native plants from nurseries and garden shops, or get seeds from friends who have obtained them properly. If you want to collect seed in the wild, it's important to get a permit from the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife.

There are a few other books on growing natives, but none as comprehensive as "Growing Hawai'i's Native Plants." (For a smaller how-to book with a different approach, Lilleeng-Rosenberger recommends Heidi Bornhorst's "Growing Native Hawaiian Plants.") The new book's photography, with color close-up photographs of each genus by nearly 30 photographers, is very helpful.