Come and Visit a Tropical Vireya Grower in Hawaii

The Big Island of Hawaii has an amazing plethora of growers that export food commodities to the world, and also amazing floral businesses that are a huge part of our agro-economy. I’m going to take you on a visit to one of our local growers of specialty Vireyas or Tropical Rhododendrons.
We are visiting the White Cloud nursery in the Ka’eohe Homesteads on the east side of Hawaii Island. This area really feels and looks like we are in the cloud forests where vireyas tend to flourish in higher altitude conditions.
Pete and Jane Adams are the owners of the nursery and they have been growing and selling  vireyas at White Cloud exclusively.   This nursery specializes in subtropical vireyas and comprises of five acres with over 300 species of hybrid Vireya and Madenni Rhododendrons. There is also a wonderful show garden and green house that is open to the public on Saturdays from 9 to 2 pm.


Shall we start our tour with Pete and Jane, they promised to spare us a few minutes from their busy schedule to show us some amazing plants today!  The show gardens are very well laid out and bordered with logs from paper bark tree’s that were cut down to open up the growing display areas. The walkways are cinder rock so that makes it very easy to walk around the display areas. I didn’t ask about wheel chair accessibility but it looks doable if your willing to push someone through the cindered pathways.



Here’s one of the first beauties that caught my eye while we were walking. Its called Will Silent, I should have asked why this was called that name, but I was just to stunned by the color and wanted to capture the amazing flower clusters and the burst of sunlight.



Let me introduce you to Christo Rey which has vivid orange and a yellow throat base, its dazzling and the flowers look just soo perfect.



If you like pink and frilly then you will love Queensland which has dark maroon leaves, showy flowers and is fragrant with spicy scents.



This showy bi-colored Vireya is called Haloed Gold and it is a frequent bloomer and is very sun tolerant. A nice upright shrub with glossy foliage.



I love peach colored flowers like this one called lulu, its got a zany name that makes me smile.



Now this flower is all yellow and its name is a mouthful, its called Laetum X Arigeranum. The leaves were so green and glossy, it made the yellow really pop!


I think I caught the light really well on this flower called Aravir, its just stunning and the scent is just amazing, light floral and jasmine scent.  I would love to get a few of these please.


For those that want a smaller gem, this one is still dramatic. Its called R. Commonae and the small bells are almost pure red, what a drama queen!


This one is my favorite on the tour, its called Candy Halo and it really has it all. Showy pink framing a white star and deep yellow throat and a large flower. ..humm you had me at hello!


I think I could go on and on through their beautiful display garden, but it was getting really hot outside so we decided to check out the green house for some well deserved shade. This is the interior shot of the green house. It is over 3000 square feet and used primarily for propagating their export certified plants.

We toured the inside briefly and I saw alot of the propagated plants, minatures and new varieties that are currently being tested. I also saw a few beauties that were actually more interesting for their foliage like this one called R. Polyanthemum, it has rusty and furry leaves and would add alot of texture and color to an all green garden.


Well I’m feeling a little sun stroke and I thank Jane and Pete for spending some time with us. If you would like to check out their website for more information about growing these amazing plants and adding some to your collection, here’s their website below. http://www.whitecloudnursery.com/
If your ever on the Big Island of Hawaii, please stop and visit the White Cloud nursery outside of Pahoa Village, Pete and Jane are such wonderful garden friends, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy meeting them.  Also, If you enjoyed our tour, please feel free to make a comment below, I would appreciate hearing from you.
Thanks for joining me on our vireya tour and I’ll look forward to visiting another favorite plant  grower from Hawaii soon.
Aloha,

Noel

Sky Watch Friday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A View along the Hamakua Coastline on the Big Island of Hawaii.  This is before the sun sets on our side of the island. Happy Aloha Friday.

Wordless Wednesdays - Just Orchids, Orchids, Orchids

The Potager Garden In Hawaii

All right, I’ve really procrastinated on this potager garden all winter long and things are already turning the corner for spring gardening, at least here in Hawaii. My main problem with starting this new garden was that I had big grandiose plans with beautiful cobbled walk ways, raised stone beds, beautiful arbors and sitting areas and amazing and sustainable plantings. Needless to say I didn’t hit the dirt running, especially here in East Hawaii where there is only lava rock, with no soil this means importing dirt, nutrients, water, mulch and really starting from the ground up.






After clearing out a nice section for my tropical potager, I made some preliminary plans. Take a look an the initial plan I made from literally a piece of lined paper I save from being tossed out. Now this is where things started to fall apart. I realized that all the work I’m planning is very labor intensive and seeing that most of my funds for this potager were being allocated to the plants and trees ( and what true plant fanatic would not spend the money mostly on plants ). Sigh, I agonized about all the work involved and started slowly in the process of making piles of rock. Sorting flat rocks for pavers, squarer rocks for rock walls and odd shaped rocks for filler. It almost seemed like from the endless supply of rocks in the garden, I was just making more piles of rocks…..ugh!



Well it has been a long haul doing most of the work myself, I have been making some small progress and here’s an update on what I have finally created in a small area that will be allocated as the potager.




The foundation to a future garden shed with a stone wall perimeter is being planned. Large rocks in the background will be used for a pond and water feature.


This is the first fruit tree I planted in the potager garden. It is one of my favorite fruits trees called a surinam cherry. It tastes like a little like a cherry and pineapple combined, sweet and tangy with a very large seed and very pretty clusters of small white flowers.


Boy that was hot and exhausting just thinking about all the work involved and I’ve only just begun the adventure…stay tuned for the next chapter of the potager garden in Hawaii.

Exciting visit to my favorite garden design center

 

 

Whenever I come back to San Francisco for a visit, I always have to make a pilgrimage to my favorite garden design center Flora Grub. This is really a gardening design mecca, its almost impossible not to grab an item or a plant at every single display and vignette that this center shows off. Don’t you love all these succulents, all color coordinated.

 

I mean who wouldn’t want one of these amazing leucadendrons with all the beautiful variegated foliage?

 

Or this delicate looking but very hardy Grevillea.

 

Or some amazing blue containers with those well coordinated palms, cordylines and osteospermums to go in a monochromatic theme.

 

 

The thing I love about this place is that it really inspires the imagination and creates all these amazing displays for how it may apply in different gardening scenarios.

 

 

There’s also a lot of zany vignettes and showmanship going on at this center.

 

 

 

I love the indoor and outdoor spaces, it really feels like you are in a complete environment seemlessly moving indoor to outdoor spaces. I think I can even live here :)

 

 

Look at this amazing Protea Nerifolia, its already blooming and ready for you to take it home and plant it like you’ve been growing this for ages, perfect for a mediterranean garden.

 

 

Indoors, there are beautiful tables of garden books, garden tools, gifts and this amazing hanging plant sculpture.

 

 

 

In fact there’s sculpture all over the place, including this beautiful large scale piece out in the parking lot, do you think i can pack one of these into my suitcase?

 

Fortunately, my suitcase was already full so I was content to go home with a camera filled with amazing ideas…well and I did get a few books and tools and, and….and.

Foliage Follow up Day – January 16th

 

Don’t hate me, plants don’t die back during winter time in Hawaii, they just keep on growing and what doesn’t bloom at this time still has amazing foliage to back up the spent blooms or they just may be insignificant blooms and the foliage is the real star.

Here’s some of the beautiful foliage showing up at my garden this January.

 

This is one of my favorite ti plants, isn’t it a real show off?  It loves full sun and is not a water hog like my other tropicals

 

 

I have quite a few varieties of crotons, some with thin leaves, some with fat, some with polka dots others with variegated colored veins like below

 

 

I am a crazy for coleus plants, they just keep getting bigger, so i have to ruthlessly chopped them down end of december so they don’t turn into mini trees. These variegated beauties below are minatures and are well behaved.

 

I only have a few clusters of variegated cannas like this one called tropicanna…for some reason they don’t seem to be as popular here on the east side of the island, i’ll have to check out the growers instead to find some more interesting variegated varieties.

 

I can’t remember the name of this caladium, I love the purple spots and the deep purple veins and the stems are jet black.

 

I love the photo I took of this stand of caladiums after a morning rain, aren’t hey just screaming aloha and welcome!

 

Here’s a nice combination of a variegated red ti with some black ti in the background.

 

 

This is your standard indoor stromanthes, but i have it growing as a large shrub outdoors.

 

I don’t tend to collect bromeliads as much since they collect alot of water on their leaves which creates water gullies for mosquitos to come and hatch their eggs. Although I just have a few beauties like this large one in the front and far away from the house.

 

 

Okay, i’m not going to torture you anymore, i just wanted to bring a little color into your january day, hope you enjoyed touring the garden. If your aching to see more amazing foliage, head on over to Pam’s site at Digging where she has links on the comments section for other gardeners participating on foliage day.