Author Archives: Graham

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About Graham

I take photos when I'm out and about, recording life on the Big Island of Hawaii.

My tropical garden

A tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Fabulous Florals.’ See more responses here. For this, I’m taking a short jaunt off the island to revisit the first tropical garden I planted. That was in Washington State. Now, I’m aware that Washington State isn’t in the tropics, but I like a challenge.

My goal was to create a garden of hardy tropical-looking plants, with colorful flowers and/or big, bountiful foliage. The first summer, I laid the foundations with three Windmill Palms and a wall of bamboo alongside one fence. Colorful canna lillies and big foliage gave an inkling of what was to come.

A canna lily in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Canna Lily-Tropicanna
Solanum laciniatum and Castor Bean-Carmencita Red in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Solanum laciniatum and Castor Bean-Carmencita Red,
Overview of a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington

The second summer was when the garden took off. Ground covers spread. Vines took off. Pots provided focal points.

The leaf of a Musa Basjoo banana in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Windmill Palm (Trachycarpus fortunei), Asiatic Lily-Red orange, Phygelius x recturs ‘Cherry Ripe’ - Cape Fuchsia in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Tropical foliage in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Helianthemum ‘Bright Spot’ and Canna - Omega in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Plants in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Sedum lydium in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Sedum spath ‘Cape Blanco’ in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Honeysuckle-Gold Flame in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
A cat sits next Eccremocarpus scaber – Chilean glory vine in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington

And of course, there were those fabulous florals.

Hardy Lily-Stargazer in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Clianthus puniceus in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Sedum spurium ‘Fuldaglut’, Agastache ‘Apricot Sunrise’ in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
A bee on a sunflower in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Phygelius x recturs ‘Cherry Ripe’ - Cape Fuchsia flowers in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Crocosmia masoniorum - Montbretia in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
A yellow Asiatic Lily in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Brugmansia ‘Charles Grimaldi’ in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
A red flower in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
Embothrium coccineum in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington

One corner of the garden featured a Dicksonia Antarctica tree fern, which was soon joined by a Dicentra Scandens-Golden tears vine, Eccremocarpus scaber – Chilean glory vine, and a Clematis Armandii. There’s less than a month between the second and third photos in the gallery below, and the following summer the area was rampant with color and growth.

A Dicksonia Antarctica tree fern is planted in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
A Dicksonia Antarctica tree fern, Dicentra Scandens-Golden tears vine, Eccremocarpus scaber – Chilean glory vine, Clematis Armandii in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
A Dicksonia Antarctica tree fern, Dicentra Scandens-Golden tears vine, Eccremocarpus scaber – Chilean glory vine, Clematis Armandii in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington
A Dicksonia Antarctica tree fern, Dicentra Scandens-Golden tears vine, Eccremocarpus scaber – Chilean glory vine, Clematis Armandii in a tropical garden in Port Townsend, Washington

But it is Washington State and there are winters and in the winter it can snow. The palms and bamboo bent low under the weight of the snow, but they survived. The tiki torch looked distinctly unhappy with the weather, possibly jealous of those lucky plants that were moved indoors for the winter.

Snow on a windmill palm during winter in Port Townsend, Washington
Snow on bamboo during winter in Port Townsend, Washington
A tiki torch with snow on it
A Musa Basjoo banana indoors during winter in Port Townsend, Washington

Black-crowned night heron and chicks

A Black-crowned night heron and her chicks in a nest on the Big Island, Hawaii

Recently, I was walking around the fishponds at Mauna Lani when I came to a small cafe that was closed. I walked to the back of it, hoping for views to the fishpond behind. What I found was a couple of people staring up into a tree where a lot of loud squawking was going on.

When the people moved on, I spotted the source of the noise. It was the nest of a Black-crowned Night Heron, high up in the tree, and occupied by an adult bird and two chicks. The two chicks, as might be expected, were the source of all the noise, demanding food and jabbing their dangerous-looking beaks at the parent. Eventually, the adult bird moved out of the nest to nearby branch. The chicks tried to follow, but weren’t agile enough to do so without risking falling from the tree.

I took a few photos, but the tangle of branches made it difficult to know if the birds were in shot, let alone in focus. So I was happy to get this photo, which captures something of the scene. When I saw it, for some reason the expression that popped into my head was, ‘a face only a mother could love!’

Dwarf Naupaka

Endemic Dwarf Naupaka plants at Mauna Lani fishponds in Hawaii
Endemic Dwarf Naupaka plants at Mauna Lani fishponds in Hawaii

Beach Naupaka (Scaevola sericea or Scaevola taccada) is relatively common here, often seen in coastal areas because of its salt tolerance. Dwarf Naupaka (Scaevola coriacea), on the other hand, is on the federal endangered list. It used to be seen on all the main islands, but these days it’s only seen on Maui and then not in many places. The flowers of Dwarf Naupaka are a little different and the leaves are considerably smaller, just one to two inches in length.

These endemic plants were spotted alongside one of the fishponds at Mauna Lani, on the South Kohala coast, by a friend who knows a lot about native plants. When he told me about them, I headed down to take a look and get some photos. I agreed with his identification and got a confirmation on Hawaii Plant ID.

It’s likely that the plants by the fishpond aren’t naturally occurring, but were deliberately planted, though by who or why is not clear. Still, it’s encouraging that at least one small pocket of these extremely rare plants still exists on the island.

Endemic Dwarf Naupaka plants at Mauna Lani fishponds in Hawaii