Ever Green
By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Lois Taylor poses at Foster Garden.
Aloha from the garden
Lois Taylor says goodbye with a
gift of tips to help keep your greenery
green and your flowers floweringIT'S HARD TO KNOW WHERE TO START when you've reached the end. I made the decision that the time had come to quit several months before the first announcement of the closure of the Star-Bulletin.
I think the best goodbye would be a collection of the good advice on gardening that I've gotten in the 12 years that I have been writing this column.
The essential thing to remember when planning or adding to a garden is that gardening is probably the only art form that works in four dimensions. In addition to the usual three: length, width and height of flower beds and hedges and trees, you have the fourth dimension of time.
Time shapes and changes your garden by the varying growth of the different plants and by their life expectancy. Ginger grows quickly and so does philodendron. Singapore holly grows slowly and sometimes magnolia doesn't seem to grow at all. So it is important to know what that pretty little plant you bought at a Foster Garden sale will look like in five years. Will it still be bashfully sitting there waiting to be recognized, will it have taken over the garden, or will it have gone early to the Great Compost Pit in the Sky?
The best way to get new ideas about gardens isn't from the stacks of garden magazines and coffee table books at a local bookstore. In fact, most of them are no good at all because they dwell on tulip cultivation and how to protect your garden from marauding deer. They are written for mainland gardeners. The best source of new ideas, like the bluebird of happiness, is in your own back yard.Actually not your back yard, but the neighbors' yards. Anything that will flourish within a radius of a mile ought to grow for you, too. Put on your walking shoes, pack a notebook, pencil and camera, and take to the streets. Talk to gardeners who are out weeding and watering -- they'll be flattered by your interest -- and find out what grows well for them. Photograph attractive landscaping such as pathways, water features and the placement of plants. This shouldn't be a copycat exercise, but a source of ideas to be tailored to your own space.
On the same note, visit gardens when you travel. If you are in a city for several days, look in the newspaper for garden tours or call the local botanical garden. You probably won't be able to transfer much of what you see growing there to our climate, but again, look at the landscaping features. What do they do with their hoses, what colors and shapes are they using in flower beds? What's new in lawn furniture?
It's interesting to know what the trends are. Gardening is as trendy as fashion or the latest rock group. Not too long ago, white gardens were the ticket, green foliage and white flowers. No more. What ever happened to spider lilies or stephanotis? One recent mainland craze is the butterfly garden, which upon some thought seems like a bad idea. Certainly all of those butterflies flitting around the garden are a pretty thing, but where do butterflies come from? From caterpillars, that's where, and what to caterpillars do? They eat up your foliage.
At the moment, there is a great interest in Hawaiian native plants, particularly the endangered ones that can now be legally sold at garden shops. The brutal truth is, however, that many of them aren't very attractive or they have tricky cultivation problems. This goes back to the fact that there are few endangered orchids or roses or plumerias. Things that are beautiful and/or easy to grow are kept alive by amateur gardeners. Those that aren't tend to die out. The major exception to this is nut grass, which clearly has plans to take over the world.
One major benefit of Native Hawaiian plants is that most of them require little water and are considered xeriscape planting. As Oahu's population increases, the conservation of fresh water becomes essential.
The Board of Water Supply estimates half of all the water used here is for irrigating gardens, golf courses and the fields of commercial growers of fruits, vegetables and landscaping material. The best way to limit water use is to limit lawn planting, the thirstiest part of your garden. Use lawn only where there is foot traffic, and look for xeriscape ground covers for other areas.
The last piece of advice is to scale your garden to something you can enjoy. Yard service is expensive and an elaborate garden requires a lot of work. Figure out what professional help you need, starting with tree-trimming, which should never be attempted by the amateur. Sure, a bad trim will grow back like a haircut, though not very fast. More important, tree-trimming is a dangerous activity. Leave it to the professionals. Then determine how much time you want to spend working in your garden and keep your plans within those boundaries.
My final wishes are that your buds always blossom, your trees grow straight and tall, the slugs and the bulbuls never find where you live, the sun shine on your flowers, the cool shade of trees shelter your home, the tropic rains fall gently to make your plants grow, and your garden be a source of joy to you and those you love. Thank you and aloha.
If clever words were gold, Lois Taylor would be richer than Bill Gates. TAYLOR-MADE STYLE
Taylor began her career with the Star-Bulletin as a society columnist in 1961, a time when the feature section was called "the women's page." As the newspaper evolved, so did Taylor, becoming a feature reporter whose style and writing remain unmatched.
Although she retired from writing full time in 1992, she has continued her Ever Green column -- until today. Alas, all good things come to an end.
But Taylor promises you haven't seen the last of her byline, and we'll hold her to that.
Gardening Calendar in Do It Electric!
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Evergreen by Lois Taylor, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802.
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Evergreen by Lois Taylor is a regular Friday feature of the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin. © 1998 All rights reserved.
