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Dig This
Friday, November 10, 2000
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
William Robinson's award-winning lawn (above)
terminates at a koi pond.
William Walter "WW" Robinson is an 84-year-old father of eight, grandfather of 14. He is a retired rear admiral of the U.S. Navy. His diverse and accomplished business career included stints as director of the Chamber of Commerce of Honolulu and the Hawaii Restaurant Association. He is a builder and an athlete. He has won recognition as a journalist an an innovator. Winning lawn
takes planningBut we are here to talk about his lawn.
Robinson's lawn was recently named one of the Top 10 lawns in the country in Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse's third annual All-American Lawn Contest.
Robinson planned his 7,500- square-foot Nuuanu lot to maximize lawn area when he bought the property 25 years ago. The five-bedroom pole house was built far forward, leaving a long, narrow rectangle behind.
"The back yard was just a field that slanted back down into a swamp," he said.
"It had no cohesiveness. It's really pulled together now," said Joan Anne "Queenie" Robinson, his wife of 48 years.
Robinson pulled the lot together by framing the lawn on two sides with undulating planting beds. He excavated the swamp at the end of the property to find an ancient 'auwai, or man-made stream. Robinson built a 20-foot koi pond, which the 'auwai now flows through on its way to Nuuanu Stream. The sloping field was leveled and two homemade wooden bridges span the 'auwai and step down to the lower area behind the pond.Though framing the lawn with planted beds reduced its size, it made it look larger, said Robinson, who points out his lawn is the smallest of the winners.
"This is the smallest of the 10. Some of them run acres. We don't have acres in Hawaii," he said. "I call it the big lawn on a small lot."
So what makes all his hard work worthwhile?
"Well, I got a thousand dollars from these people," jokes Robinson.
But the truth is he built the yard for his family.
"This is not a golf course type of fine grass. It's a rugged lawn built for the 14 grandchildren. They romp in it," said Robinson.
It wasn't until Robinson retired from the restaurant business four years ago that he concentrated his energy on the lawn portion of the yard.
"Actually I went to Eagle (now Lowe's) and got a lot of advice from them," he said.
He planted a hearty mixture of duster tall fescue, rye grass and soreal red fescue and installed a sprinkler system down the center of the lawn.
"We get a lot of rain up here. One would think you wouldn't need a sprinkler, but when it gets dry, it gets real dry. You can lose a lawn," he said.
Robinson has a rain gauge he watches and he only uses the sprinkler as needed.
Robinson's children and grandchildren help out with weekly mowing and weed whacking. Clippings are left on the lawn.
"The cuttings provide a fertilizer," he said. "Because we get a lot of rain, it mulches down quickly."
And he fertilizes annually with steer manure.
Planning and a practical approach to maintenance are the hallmarks of Robinson's strategy.
He uses fast-growing water hyacinth from his pond to mulch the planting beds, which were designed with yield as well as aesthetic's in mind.
"All the trees on my land, they have to pay their way. They either give me food or flowers," he said.
Food trees include coffee, which his daughter roasts in their oven. "It's a lot of work," he said. In full fruit, the tree yields just a pound or two, he said.
The side plantings also include mango, banana, grapefruit, Ka'u orange, lime, honey tangerine, two types of avocado, starfruit, guava, macadamia nut and papaya. He had mountain apple trees, but pulled them out. They were too messy.
Beneath and among the food trees are red euphorbia, snowbush, hibiscus, crown flower, Australian tree fern, friendship palm, croton, spider lily, orchids, jade, pepperomia, ti, ginger, anthurium, bougainvillea, monstera, bromeliads, air plants, hinahina, jasmine, iris and sago palms.
Nearly a dozen staghorn ferns, ranging in size from petite to enormous, adorn plumeria trees. Robinson said the birds bring them, he's never planted one.
Robinson's plans for his prize, a $1,000 gift certificate to Lowe's, include the purchase of a lawn mower and wheel barrel. He's also in the running for a $5,000 prize.
All in all, he's pleased with his efforts.
"It was a labor of love and it was a challenge," he said.
Now that the lawn is established and Robinson's children rotate the bulk of its maintenance, he is on to his next project, the renovation of two rooms in the couple's two-story pole house.
"When he retired he didn't stop," said Queenie. "He's a project man. He always has something on the back burner."
Gardening Calendar in Do It Electric!
Stephanie Kendrick's gardening column runs Fridays in Today.
You can write her at the Star-Bulletin, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802
or email skendrick@starbulletin.com
