A. Clerodendrons, or bleeding hearts, are nice, tough flowering plants for Hawai'i gardens. Some common names are glory blower and bleeding heart. Individual species have been given different Hawaiian names. There are vines, shrubs and trees and all are in the Verbenaceae plant family. One Hawaiian name for the red and white flowered Clerodendron Thomsoniae is ho'eha pu'uwai.

It is native to West Africa.

Clerodendron quadriloculare is a very attractive and striking bleeding heart from the Philippines. It has broad, long paddle-shaped leaves that are purple on the underside. The flowers are profuse if grown in rich, organic soil. It can spread by root suckers and is weedy sometimes, especially in wet conditions and at higher elevations.

The flowers form in plush panicles and are a bold white with pink highlights. The overall effect is of big pink and white snowballs on a pretty leaved large shrub. Many are in full gorgeous bloom this spring after all the life-giving rains of this winter.

Pagoda flower, or lau'awa, is scientifically known as Clerodendron buchananii or C. speciossiumum. It is also called Java glory bean, and mata ajam in its native Java. Pagoda flower makes a nice potted plant, specimen in the landscape or a whole hedge of the orange, pagoda-arranged flowers.

The leaves are rounded, heart-shaped, and very soft and silky to the touch, being coated in fine silvery hairs, which help repel pests and save moisture for the plant.

The bigger ones in ideal growing conditions, like in Mountain View on the Big Island, grow into really nice pyramid- or pagoda-shaped heads of individual orange-red flowers.

Wild pikake or pikake hohono is C. fragrans.

The flowers look like a double pikake and have a light scent (true pikake is better).

Sometimes, pikake won't bloom if it's too cold and rainy. We also have a new pest pikake fly that bites the buds. In this case, wild pikake makes a good substitute for your hair or for lei making.

Clerodendrons often set seeds in Hawai'i or grow from running root suckers, and this can make them weedy in some climates. New plants can be grown from seeds, or they grow very easily from cuttings or slips. You can cut a flowering branch and use it in a flower arrangement and then root it and grow a new plant.

Now that's akamai recycling!