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Hi'iaka's Healing Herb Garden : Column Index : 2003 : July03
Coming Soon...
In Favor of Natural Landscaping
"You have such beautiful pahoehoe!" This is a compliment I often receive from visitors to my garden when they first enter and observe the swirling configurations of rock and the dramatic backdrops it forms to showcase different garden beds. I used to laugh -- what humorous praise, I thought. But now I find it oddly sad because so few homeowners keep their terrain in its natural state. It's not that my pahoehoe is more attractive than other pahoehoe -- the reason my visitors admire it is because they simply don't see much undisturbed lava unless they travel to a wilderness area, or watch the new landscape being formed at the end of Chain of Craters Road.
Why Do So Many People Rip Their Lava?
When I first began building my garden in 2000, I had a difficult time finding a bulldozer operator who didn't want to totally destroy my beautiful lava. The practice of "ripping" seems to be a social institution here, but it was not what I intended for the garden that I was about to create. I wanted the setting to be more natural, with the `Ohia trees left standing and the twisting, uneven pahoehoe cleared of invasive plants. Finally, I found a fellow with a small dozer who agreed to "gently" bulldoze the unwanted plants from my property.
After my land was cleared, I could finally see the lava formations, the little hills and valleys, even a couple of vortexes. From that point on, the garden basically designed itself. I tell visitors that it's the first garden I've built (and my gardening career began in 1972, mind you) where I have not been the one in charge. Instead of sitting indoors with a pencil and a piece of graph paper, carefully mapping out garden beds, boundaries, areas for sitting and so forth, this garden directed its own design through the rock that is its very sturdy foundation. Why do people want to control nature so much? Why not simply "flow with it" and work with what nature has given you? For myself, I have gained a more relaxed attitude about my garden by letting go and letting the garden tell me what to do, both in terms of its design as well as the types of plants that are best suited to growing in it.
Let the Plants Tell You What They Like
When I try to force something to grow here, I find it often fails. For example, my Valerian and lemon balm, normally hardy and even invasive in other environments, are struggling members of my plant family. They might not survive here forever (if they get through this current drought!). When I find myself digging up a plant, repotting it and babying it in my nursery area while I re-build its bed with more soil, compost, mulch and other good stuff, I begin to think "why am I doing this?" Why not make gardening easy on ourselves by growing only the plants that can withstand life on a lava flow, in a place where it can rain buckets for a month or more and on the other hand, not rain at all for similar periods of time? One of my central philosophies about gardening in Paradise is that if a plant can adapt to the whims of the weather and can live through times of drought as well as constant, drenching rains, that plant is happy in my garden. If it cannot endure such dramatic climate fluctuations, it will not succeed here. I tell people that if a plant survives, I'm glad; if it doesn't, "too bad, so sad." But the native Hawaiian plants are extremely hardy and carefree. Their numbers continue to increase in my garden, while I learn and accept that many plants from other parts of the world are simply less well-adapted to the periodic parching droughts and torrential rains.
Let Nature Fertilize and Stop Worrying About Insect Pests
A similar line of thinking goes into my philosophies about fertilizing and pest control. First of all, I believe that many people over-fertilize their plants, especially with chemical and synthetic fertilizers like "Triple 16." When you go for a hike in the Hawaiian wilderness, who do you think is fertilizing all of the `Ohia trees, kului, `a`ali`i and other wild native plants? No one. No one human, that is! The plants take care of themselves: their leaves drop to the ground and form a natural mulch that decomposes to nourish the parent plant. If they endure dry spells, they are selected for, in the Darwinian scheme of things. Remember "survival of the fittest"? That's how I view the plants in my garden.
When visitors express alarm that a plant such as my ma`o hau hele, or native yellow hibiscus, has bug-chewed leaves, they often ask "what are you going to do about this problem?" I reply, "nothing. The plant is healthy, it is putting out new growth, forming flowers, and then seeds. It is successfully achieving its mission in life, which is to reproduce itself. In nature, there isn't a master species walking around with a spray can -- there is a harmonious balance between plants and insects." Insects, plants and humans are equals in my opinion! Who am I to decide which insects live and which ones die? One attitude that I have let go of in gardening is my perfectionism -- if a plant has a few chewed-up leaves, it's all right.
Living close to nature as we do in Hawaii connects you to the Earth and her wondrous power, over which you quickly realize you have no control. Then that becomes a comfort because you can say good-bye to some attitudes, which allows you to relax and enjoy life more.
In Favor of Natural Landscaping
"You have such beautiful pahoehoe!" This is a compliment I often receive from visitors to my garden when they first enter and observe the swirling configurations of rock and the dramatic backdrops it forms to showcase different garden beds. I used to laugh -- what humorous praise, I thought. But now I find it oddly sad because so few homeowners keep their terrain in its natural state. It's not that my pahoehoe is more attractive than other pahoehoe -- the reason my visitors admire it is because they simply don't see much undisturbed lava unless they travel to a wilderness area, or watch the new landscape being formed at the end of Chain of Craters Road.
Why Do So Many People Rip Their Lava?
When I first began building my garden in 2000, I had a difficult time finding a bulldozer operator who didn't want to totally destroy my beautiful lava. The practice of "ripping" seems to be a social institution here, but it was not what I intended for the garden that I was about to create. I wanted the setting to be more natural, with the `Ohia trees left standing and the twisting, uneven pahoehoe cleared of invasive plants. Finally, I found a fellow with a small dozer who agreed to "gently" bulldoze the unwanted plants from my property.
After my land was cleared, I could finally see the lava formations, the little hills and valleys, even a couple of vortexes. From that point on, the garden basically designed itself. I tell visitors that it's the first garden I've built (and my gardening career began in 1972, mind you) where I have not been the one in charge. Instead of sitting indoors with a pencil and a piece of graph paper, carefully mapping out garden beds, boundaries, areas for sitting and so forth, this garden directed its own design through the rock that is its very sturdy foundation. Why do people want to control nature so much? Why not simply "flow with it" and work with what nature has given you? For myself, I have gained a more relaxed attitude about my garden by letting go and letting the garden tell me what to do, both in terms of its design as well as the types of plants that are best suited to growing in it.
Let the Plants Tell You What They Like
When I try to force something to grow here, I find it often fails. For example, my Valerian and lemon balm, normally hardy and even invasive in other environments, are struggling members of my plant family. They might not survive here forever (if they get through this current drought!). When I find myself digging up a plant, repotting it and babying it in my nursery area while I re-build its bed with more soil, compost, mulch and other good stuff, I begin to think "why am I doing this?" Why not make gardening easy on ourselves by growing only the plants that can withstand life on a lava flow, in a place where it can rain buckets for a month or more and on the other hand, not rain at all for similar periods of time? One of my central philosophies about gardening in Paradise is that if a plant can adapt to the whims of the weather and can live through times of drought as well as constant, drenching rains, that plant is happy in my garden. If it cannot endure such dramatic climate fluctuations, it will not succeed here. I tell people that if a plant survives, I'm glad; if it doesn't, "too bad, so sad." But the native Hawaiian plants are extremely hardy and carefree. Their numbers continue to increase in my garden, while I learn and accept that many plants from other parts of the world are simply less well-adapted to the periodic parching droughts and torrential rains.
Let Nature Fertilize and Stop Worrying About Insect Pests
A similar line of thinking goes into my philosophies about fertilizing and pest control. First of all, I believe that many people over-fertilize their plants, especially with chemical and synthetic fertilizers like "Triple 16." When you go for a hike in the Hawaiian wilderness, who do you think is fertilizing all of the `Ohia trees, kului, `a`ali`i and other wild native plants? No one. No one human, that is! The plants take care of themselves: their leaves drop to the ground and form a natural mulch that decomposes to nourish the parent plant. If they endure dry spells, they are selected for, in the Darwinian scheme of things. Remember "survival of the fittest"? That's how I view the plants in my garden.
When visitors express alarm that a plant such as my ma`o hau hele, or native yellow hibiscus, has bug-chewed leaves, they often ask "what are you going to do about this problem?" I reply, "nothing. The plant is healthy, it is putting out new growth, forming flowers, and then seeds. It is successfully achieving its mission in life, which is to reproduce itself. In nature, there isn't a master species walking around with a spray can -- there is a harmonious balance between plants and insects." Insects, plants and humans are equals in my opinion! Who am I to decide which insects live and which ones die? One attitude that I have let go of in gardening is my perfectionism -- if a plant has a few chewed-up leaves, it's all right.
Living close to nature as we do in Hawaii connects you to the Earth and her wondrous power, over which you quickly realize you have no control. Then that becomes a comfort because you can say good-bye to some attitudes, which allows you to relax and enjoy life more.
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