HIPS garden tour 20 Dec 2009

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Hawaii Island Palm Society had scheduled a garden tour today in one of the great palm gardens on the Big Island: Pauleen Sullivan's 11 acre garden in Kapoho, about 45 minutes south of Hilo. Things didn't look too promising - this morning we had just over 9 inches of rain over the previous 36 hour period, and yesterday (Friday) was the most thunder and lightning we've seen in our 14 years here. All day long. Definitely not a good day for sightseeing, or a garden tour. BUT, this morning looked very promising. Clear blue skies and sunny. Then the clouds began to roll in, and a little after 1 p.m. when I left our home in Leilani Estates to drive to Kapoho, less than 15 minutes away, it was thundering again, and the rain was pouring down. I was wondering what kind of turnout we would have under these circumstances. Quite a few cars parked outside the property (and I was a few minutes late) which seemed promising. Here are two photos of the driveway in from the street. You can see the raindrops falling in the water in one of the photos.

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By the time I got to the house, Terry was already telling the crowd about how his parents got interested in palms, and how the garden in Kapoho was developed, beginning in 1990. For those who are not familiar with the garden, or with Pauleen, I should mention that Pauleen has been in the International Palm Society for as long as it has existed (more than 50 years). Pauleen's son, Terry has been instrumental (major understatement!) in planting all the palms in their Kapoho garden, under Pauleen's supervision. Unfortunately, due to her age and for health reasons Pauleen is no longer able to travel from her home in Ventura, California, to Hawaii. (She's 88 now).

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And within 15 minutes or so we were on our way, walking around this very impressive palm garden, with Terry as our guide. He was quick to explain that because he hasn't been able to come over here as frequently as he used to, he is a bit behind on his fertilizer program and some of the palms are a bit on the yellow side. (The property is currently for sale).

This was tagged as a Dypsis mananjarensis.

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This palm was sold as Dypsis tsaratananensis (which it is not). We're currently calling it Dypsis sp. white.

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Fruiting Metroxylon amicarum

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Voanioala gerardii. Probably the largest one in Hawaii, and unless there's a larger one on the mainland (seems unlikely!?) it would be the largest on in the country. It obviously like the heat here.

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Astrocaryum alatum

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Carpoxylon macrospermum

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Orania sp.

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Garden view

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Fruiting Metroxylon vitiense. This is the end of this palm. Unfortunately!

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Chuniophoenix hainanensis

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Corypha utan

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Dypsis procera

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Euterpe catinga

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Pinanga turnatensis

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Multitrunked Siphokentia (now Hydriastele) beguinii

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Bismarckia nobilis

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More general garden views. I should mention that the rain had stopped by the time we began the garden tour, and about halfway through, the sun actually came out and the weather couldn't have been more perfect!

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And more...the palm in the center of both of these two photos is a Mauritia flexuosa

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And the final ones that I took. Again, more general garden shots. There were a few other PalmTalk members who took photos, so feel free to post more photos in this thread. You know who you are...!

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Apparently I was (unknowingly) attempting to exceed the 2MB limit, so "the system" only accepted three photos in the post above. Here's my last photo.

[BS Man about Palms]

INCREDIBLE!

Thanks Bo!!

More, people, Please!

[Kris]

Dear Bo Goran

Nice visuals...and very happy to see stills of the buri palm & the Bismarkia's..

Thanks & Love,

kris

[Davidl]

Awesome photos Bo and if global warming is real maybe someday my palms will look that good

[Mark_NoVA]

What a beautiful place...great photos!

11 acres...wow! Is the entire area planted with palms? Does all that black rock make it really hot sometimes?

Pretty photos of Euterpe catinga--is that the same as the palm sometimes called something like E. edulus 'orange crownshaft'?

[palmislandRandy]

Amazing garden.....even without fert!

[palmcurry]

Thanks for sharing the great pics, Bo.

That looks like a IPS meeting to end all IPS meetings! I would be stoked to see that garden, or any of the great gardens in your area. Even if it's raining cats & dogs!

[Jeff in St Pete]

Bo, thanks for all the great photos! I used to think the Sullivan garden looked kind of barren with no undergrowth, but now I understand why they planted the way they did. The black cinder makes a nice backdrop and really showcases each palm.

[jdapalms]

Very nice pictures BO, I always enjoy visiting the Sullivan garden just to see many of the differences in how a lot of these palms grow closer to sea level in comparison to Leilani estates which is at a higher elevation, it's amazing how the same palms can look so different due to elevation and rainfall differences.

It sounds like a lot rain over there, Like in November? Southern Calif is having a warm winter so far, I haven’t had to wear my sweat shirt in the day time since I have been here.

The Orange crown shafted palm Euterpe catinga is different than the Euterpe edulis orange variety. The seed size of Euterpe catinga is the size of a small BB. This is a rare palm in cultivation.

It would be nice to see another palm enthusiast buy this property so that it can be maintained to continue on as a world class palm garden.

Jerry

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Thanks everybody for your comments! Approx. 7 of the 11 acres are planted out, so there's still a fairly large and open area in the back that can be utilized for more plantings. And when the IPS had its Biennial in Hawaii in May 2004, the Sullivan garden was part of the tour. On that day, 13 May 2004, three gardens were visited: the Sullivan garden, our garden plus another garden here in Leilani Estates. Four buses with 50 in each alternated between the three gardens throughout the day. I think by the end of the day, most participants were definitely on palm overload!

EDIT: Jerry, we posted more or less at the same time, so I have edited out my comment about the catinga since you obviously know more about this palm than I do. About rain: we had 29.32 inches in the month of Nov 2009. Almost an inch a day, average! However, for about a week, leading up to Thursday last week it was very very dry and sunny. And then of course a real deluge Friday and Saturday. From one extreme to the other, which is often the case during the winter months.

[Kim]

Thanks for braving the elements to bring us these luscious photos of a dream-like garden. It looks especially beautiful in the rain, something about the contrast between the black cinder and the green palms -- that Carpoxylon is wonderful, the Euterpe catinga makes me swoon, and the general garden views are too much to comprehend. I would have loved to have been there to see it in person. Let's hope a palm lover surfaces who will enjoy maintaining and expanding this extraordinary garden.

[mike in kurtistown]

Unfortunately, I used too small a file size for my pictures, so they do not have the depth of focus I would like. I think that Bo-Göran got the highlights.

In the center picture of post 21, I approached the broad palm with the thick trunk and twisted leaves in the center thinking Ravenea rivularis, but the sign read "Beccariophoenix". In the right picture of post 21, the palm in the center right is a fruiting Pelagodoxa. There are two in the Sullivan garden.

Many of the photos show tall, majestic palms with double-curtain type leaves and massive fruit bracts laden with masses of small black fruit. They are Clinostigma warburgii (formerly samoense). I think I remember from the 2004 tour with the biennial that these were planted throughout the garden to provide shade for the other plantings. And there were rows of Cyrtostachys renda (Lipstick palms, Red Sealing Was palms) everywhere (see photo):

I wonder if these rows of Cyrtostachys were used to subdivide the garden into planting areas.

[mike in kurtistown]

A couple more curiosities - the one was labeled Pritchardia forbesiana. I sometimes don't trust Pritchardia labels though.

There were several examples of what looked like a small Australian desert Livistona with extremely narrow leaves and armes petioles. Some looked happier than others.:

This visit was a real treat. Many thanks to Terry.

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Mike,

Thanks for the additional photos. Maybe someone else has a few more...? And the small palm in the second photo, post #34, certainly looks like a Licuala to me! Incidentally, initially there were hundreds of Cocos nucifera on the 11 acres, and almost all of them were removed and replaced with Clinostigma samoense. (I know, Mike is correct in that the name is now C. warburgii, but I'm going to persists in calling them C. samoense... ). I'm taking Don Hodel's advice. He was here a few years ago, doing a presentation for HIPS. When asked about name changes, his response was "it's just someone's opinion - you make up your own mind...!)

Bo-Göran

[mike in kurtistown]

Bo,

Yes, I started thinking Licuala after making the last post. Something like parvifolia, perhaps? Interestingly, checking GP2, Livistona and Licuala are the two members of subtribe Livistoninae, which could help to explain why their fruits and seeds are so similar.

I wish Hodel could have found a way to bend the nomenclature rules to make samoense the genus name. The name samoense just has more color and impact.

[realarch]

Thanks Bo and Mike for getting this thread started. The description,' incredible', hardly describes this property. I had never been to this garden before and earlier photos I've seen gave me pause as far as a landscaping concept of nothing but contoured black cinder and palms. It turned out to be a perfect concept for viewing as a visitor with all of the specimens being accessible and on display as if on pedestals. It's really a unique and surprisingly lush place. What a treasure. One statistic that was mentioned was that it took 2500, (not a typo), dump trucks of black cinder to create the developed part of this garden. Boggles the mind. I also can't imagine the scope of the drip irrigation system, weed control program, the maintenance, and the identification tags.

Anyway, here are a few more photos.

Beccariophoenix madagascariensis

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Dypsis bejofo

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This was labled as Dypsis sahanofensis.

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Pinanga urosperna. Never heard of this palm.