Home is where the tube is

A lava tube that used to be home to early Hawaiians
A sign in front of a lava tube that used to be home to early Hawaiians

The public parking area for shoreline access at Mauna Lani is some distance from the ocean. From the parking lot, the trail meanders across some old lava, but off to one side is this interesting little spot.

It’s part of an old lava tube that was used as a shelter by early Hawaiians. Lava tubes are created when lava flows crust over on top, creating an insulated tube that lava continues to flow through. When an eruption ends and the supply of lava disappears, the lava drains out of the tunnel it’s been flowing through and a hollow tube is left.

As the sign at the entrance says, the tube would have been cool during the heat of the day, but would also protect from wind and rain. These days, the floor is strewn with rocks, but when used for habitation, any rocks would have been removed leaving a reasonably smooth floor. In the photos, the ceiling looks low, but I’m over six feet tall and didn’t have to duck. It’s a big area.

The top photo shows the entrance taken from the back of the tube. The bottom photo is taken from the entrance, looking toward the back.

A lava tube that used to be home to early Hawaiians

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!’