CARING FOR OUR LAND - An informational series
Tips for New Landowners
No matter how many years experience you have as a gardener back on the mainland, there are many differences to the old “rules” here in Hawai'i, and in many ways you will have to be open to learning from scratch and unlearning what you thought were basics.
For example, because we have no cold winter weather, we cannot depend on it to seasonally control weeds and bugs. If we think we can rely on pesticides to take over that job, we will be overlooking an elementary fact of living on an island: all our toxins go into the water table, which enters the County aquifer – most people’s only source of pure water for 2,000 miles! The more we spray, the more we poison OURSELVES.
But don’t panic – there are viable alternatives, most of them painless. For starters, unless you plan to develop your new lot immediately, DON’T GRUB OR BULLDOZE. Contrary to what some people will tell you, you don’t have to grub in order to have drainage. Our island substrate is like Swiss Cheese and drains very well, thank you, unless you mess with it. The weeds here will rapidly colonize disturbed soil, and even if you come back 3 months later, you will find a tall weed field and some very angry neighbors who have been fighting infestations from your parcel.
Wait until you are ready to build and live here. Then doze just your driveway and house pad and a little bit around that. Avoid pin to pin dozing. If you meander your drive around any mature trees, you will give yourself some privacy screening from the road, have some interesting plants to design your garden around, and cut down on maintenance time, energy and MONEY.
Educate yourself. Learn which are the good and bad plants so that you make the right decisions before it’s too late. Young ‘ohi‘a may look like “scrub”, but give it time and it will someday have a girth of over 11 feet and be full of lehua flowers. It may even harbor an ‘io nest. Large albizia may look beautiful, but give it time and it will fall through your roof. You want to make the right decisions before it’s too late. As with people, appearances can be deceiving.
For more information and help before you develop your lot, visit the Malama O Puna office on the boardwalk in Pahoa or call 808-965-9254. We’re there to inform and share.
Dealing With Dozers
As with most arrangements you make with contractors of services, it is vitally important to make your wishes and requirements very clear and in detail (and in writing, so if things go wrong you have a paper trail). Bulldozer operators are not know for ESP. If you just say "clear this lot", they will do so - pin to pin. Indeed, there are some operators who refuse to do any other kind of work. For them it's all or nothing. If they won't cooperate with your desires, there are other fish in the sea who will, because satisfied customers are good for business.
One of the things you will want to cover with him is what he will do with all the debris from the site (fallen trees, etc.) many operators just push it all to the property line or the edge of the cleared area. If you are only clearing part of your lot and leaving the rest forested, for example, you will want to have access to the forest and not want to be climbing over debris piles to take a relaxing stroll in the shade. Some operators will charge you to haul away our ohia trees, and then sell them to woodworkers, for firewood, or for fencing posts. You may want to keep these yourself for these purposes, so keep a chain saw handy and don't forget to tell the operator your plans.
If you are planning to keep your large trees (and we hope you are), mark them with surveyor tape and tell him to keep the dozer at least 10 feet away, the weight of a D9 can damage the root systems. Also, don't pile up soil around the base of the trees - their roots need air or they will smother.
You don't know where the equipment has been before it came to your property. It may have been knocking down albizia or miconia, or have been working in a coqui infested area. While you are still in the negotiating stage and before the dozer shows up at your property, insist that he do a thorough high pressure hose-down of the equipment, so that he is not importing problems to your lot. If you want to see what happens when this is not done, drive to the Pahoa High School parking lot and check out the parcel across the road: choke albizia! Weeds get their best foothold in disturbed soil, and so when you are bulldozing you are creating an ideal habitat for weeds to invade your parcel. Weeds will cost you money and labor and many of you will be tempted to solve the problem with herbicides (more money and labor, not to mention toxic). An ounce of prevention....
Weed Risk Assessment
After more than a century of political policies which favored development over protection of native forest, our State is either finally wising up or discovering that it is now timely and expedient to save our forests while we still have some left. This policy change did not just happen this year - it has been brewing for quite a while. The Natural Area Reserve System, the Forest Stewardship Program, and the Native Forest Tax exemption are some of the ways in which local government is helping our forests. But these programs are not well enough known, well enough funded, or comprehensive enough to save our forests.
Ultimately, as is usually the case, it comes down to YOU to take responsibility and do the right thing. Some of us may need attitude adjustments: we think that private property rights give us the legal right to do anything we want, and to a large extent that is correct. However, there is a higher "law" that states that if what you do on your land has impacts beyond your property lines, you need to consider responsible stewardship. Harboring invasive species for example, much as you personally may like them, will cause grief and major costs to your neighbors and community.
We finally have a tool which we can use to aid us in our choice of plants, and allow us to landscape with plants which will not invade our local ecosystems but still provide us with color, shade, fragrance, etc. This tool is call the "Weed Risk Assessment". More and more nurseries are evaluating their stock for invasive potential. In a nutshell, when you are considering a new plant for your garden, or deciding whether to keep an old one, here are some criteria you should consider:
- Does it out-compete other desirable plants?
- Is it a fast grower?
- Does it mature (flower & go to seed) early?
- Does it produce a lot of seeds?
- Do its seeds sprout quickly?
- Will its seeds keep viable for a long time?
- Does it have effective/multiple seed dispersal methods?
- Can it also reproduce from pieces of stem or root?
- Do we have its pollinators here?
- When mature, will it shade out other plants?
- Does it produce a dense root mass?
- Does Hawai‘i lack the plant's traditional "enemies"?
If the plant you already have or wish to buy answers most of these questions with a "yes", then find another plant to substitute. Ideally, a native plant which will help to rebuild the gene pool and is already well acclimated to Hawai‘i. There are lots of choices for trees, shrubs, vines, groundcovers, etc. Information is available at your library, on the net, and through Malama O Puna (808-965-9254). You don't have to be part of the problem if you reach out to find the solutions. And our grandchildren will still be able to experience the beauties of our native forests and bird-life.
Strawberry Guava
Recently Lowe's had a full color multi-page advertisement insert to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald in which they advertised "Strawberry Guava" plants for sale.
The strawberry guava is an alien species that is EXTREMELY INVASIVE. There are people all over the island waging battles with it in attempts to reclaim their gardens.
The tree fruits prolifically and every fruit has a great many seeds, most of which will sprout. The birds eat the fruit and spread the seeds. Even livestock will eat the fallen fruit and the seeds will sprout from the manure. Anyone who thinks they will pick the fruit and keep the strawberry guava under control that way will, to their dismay, find out differently. Trees planted in areas where there have been none before will soon infect an entire neighborhood.
Because of this it is irresponsible for Lowe's to advertise and sell this plant. We urged them to take it off of the inventory and we warn residents NOT TO BUY STRAWBERRY GUAVA (or regular or pineapple guava, for that matter) no matter how cheap the price. The true cost will make itself clear to you in only a few years and then you will realize that it wasn't a good deal after all.
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