Tag: Fruits Hawaii

Dragon Fruit

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By Heidi Bornhorst

Q: Heidi when did dragon fruit come to us here in Hawaii?  Seems kinda recent to me but one of my gardening writing friends tells me its been here since the late 1800s.

Pls inform

Mahalo

KD, Kahala

A: Like you, I think it’s recent. I know night blooming cereus, a relative of dragon fruit, has been here for a long time and has an interesting survival at sea/ revival by Horticulture story. So, I did some digging.

Ken Love, one of my go to Fruit experts, informs me that yes, it’s a recent arrival to our shores and gardens.

Love says that Greg Adams brought them from Vietnam in the late 60s or early 70s. Since then others have introduced cultivars from places like Israel.

They are native to Mexico and Central America where we get the common name pitaya. Now widely grown by masterful Horticulturists and entrepreneurial Farmers in Thailand and Vietnam, we are seeing more in Hawaii home gardens and fruit markets.

There are some reports of it getting here early, maybe by that epic plantsman and translator for Alii, Don Francisco de Paula Marin. He brought us our first mango, grapes and Yellow Plumeria, among many other wonderful plants that now enhance our Hawaii gardens.

I think the red fleshed one is gorgeous especially in a mixed fruit platter. To me the white one is more ono but less colorful and pretty. I’m still waiting to try the yellow fruited one.

Scientists call it Hylocereus.  H. undatas is the white fleshed one, H. roja is the red fruited one and H. amarilla has yellow flesh. All are in the Cactus family, Cactaceae.

They are fun to grow if you don’t mind thorns.  The stalks are heavy and need support on a sturdy trellis or fence.  You get more fruit if you hand pollinate.

We always wonder how nutritious our Hawaii grown fruit are and dragon fruit has some great nutrients.  It is high in lycopene, as are tomatoes and watermelon. It’s a good source of calcium and iron.

Night-blooming cereus or panini o ka Punahou is a kind of cactus. The most famous planting of it in Hawaii is on the rock wall surrounding Punahou School in Makiki.

Night-blooming cereus

The plant, Hylocereus undatus, is from Mexico, where it is called pitahaya. It first landed in Hawaii around 1830 on the brig Ivanhoe, which was carrying plants collected in Mexico. Most of them died and were tossed overboard, and the nearly dead, dried-out cereus cutting looked like a goner, but First Officer Charles Brewer took care of it on the long voyage and planted it in Honolulu.

Dr. Richard Criley of UH Manoa, has been monitoring the night blooming cereus flowering cycles at Punahou school, for about 20 years, and sometimes sees fruit.  Maybe young scientists are hand pollinating them. He contends that hand pollination is needed for them to set fruit here in Hawaii.

They set fruit in Mexico where they are naturally bat pollinated. Our native bats are insect eaters and they are rare.

Its thorny stems send out aerial roots from the nodes or sections of stem. You can grow it from cuttings but watch out. It looks innocent at first but as it grows it can take over your rock wall, climb up slopes or trees, or even up your utility poles and lines.

(This happened at my parents’ home and they were without a phone for three weeks! I told my mom to keep it in a pot, but she is too kindhearted and said, “It looked so cute and helpless in the pot.”)

What will Wild West winds bring? More flowers and fruit?

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By Heidi Leianuenue Bornhorst

We had such a weird windstorm with those super strong and gusty west winds! So different then normal.

Up in our valley we lost power twice to the wind and HECO did not restore power until 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday 3/8/2023.

Mangoes and avocados were full of blossoms, Honohono orchids were in bud and some in bloom.

My Portuguese Madeira roses, and native Hawaiian gardenia Na`u have been blooming well, loving the cool and rainy winter were are finally having.

As I clean up the storm debris, (Mahalo for nature’s Arboriculture) including blown down dead twigs and branches, and lots of leaves, some I notice are from my mauka neighbors.

One of the tenets of true Horticulture is to OBSERVE nature and plants, to track the moon, winds, rain and other weather phenomena as see how the plants respond.

I am still reflecting on how the plants would respond.

What do you see? How are your plants after the winds?

Did you have any big tree failures? Or just small or dead branches?

The leaves are whipped on my gingers, Surinam cherries, mulberries, and ohia shed a few flowering branches. A young popolo plant got totally blasted on one side, it was just coming into fruit.

So, we shall see!

Honohono orchids had been in full glorious fragrant bloom as they budded and bloomed early this year. Originally I thought the orchids stood the wind storm but after a few days those in the main wind tunnel area of my garden wilted and withered prematurely.

Went to a neighborhood watch potluck pa`ina and a nice lady, Lokelani, that I always say hi to on my walks was there, with a gorgeous papale lauhala. She admired my honohono and said she caught a whiff of fragrance, from way across the yard, and she looked for the source of this favorite old time Hawaii fragrance, and from where? My hair!

Since she admired the orchids, I had to give them to her, along with maire ferns!

Now a couple weeks after the winds, I’m observing some of my favorite flowers and fruit trees in my garden and neighborhood:

• ‘Ohi’a lehua  Blooming profusely, some dead wood branches and twigs broke in the winds

• Native White Hibiscus wind whipped leaves, a few blooms at the very top of the tree

• Tahitian mountain apples were blooming before, still many flowers and now small fruit.

• Gardenias surprise early blooms two on one stem, but no other apparent buds yet. (they usually bloom for me in May).

• Na`u, native Hawaiian Gardenia lots of flowers and buds (also triggered by abundant soft rains before the winds)

• Madeira roses Blooming profusely.

• Mangoes my Friend Dawn Shim from Makakilo brought me a gift of Haden mangoes, super early for this to fruit.

• Mulberries wind whipped leaves, lots of young fruit

• Pua Keni keni usually Bloom less in winter, BUT after the storm mine are full of Buds, flowers and lots of developing green “ball” fruit.  I made some lei for a fundraiser, and plucked and cut off all the young fruit, to encourage more blooms from the tree 

What are YOU observing, in your garden in your unique microclimate? I would love to hear back from my Gardening Readers …..

Fruit + Nut Trees | Hawaii Gardens

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By Heidi Bornhorst

  One of our goals for simple sustainability, is a Fruit tree in every yard, even on your apartment lanai.  For years Mark and Candy Suiso and their extensive extended ohana, participated in the epic Fruit sharing event known as Mangoes at the Moana.

This was Mark’s simple message for all the ten years we staged this educational and fun, Ono for Mango fruit, local fun foodie event.  Remember when every yard had at least one fruit tree, lots of vegetables, all kinds of things for the family to eat and to share?

Share with ohana, gifts for the neighbors, take a generous bag to work, etc.

Kupuna Pua Mendonca of Hawaii island shared some simple wisdom with me at an Aquaponics training conference in Hilo: survival trees to grow are avocado, niu or coconut, and `ulu or breadfruit.  Those healthy fats and oils will get you through times of hardship and scarcity.

You’ve heard the scary news that we have one week of food on grocery shelves in Hawaii.  Should we get cut off from imports, its handy to have some degree of self-sufficiency.

So, lets grow some survivor supplies in our gardens.  I was visiting my great gardener neighbor Joan Takamori and admiring her plush and fruitful garden.  She always has something to share and we learn from each other as we talk garden story.

Takamori asked me about a macadamia nut cracker.  She had an abundance of macadamias from her mother’s garden.

I laughed, recounting our nutcracker as kids.  It was a big pohaku in the dry stack rock wall, that was flat on top and had an almost perfectly sized mac nut puka.  We would set in a nut, and hit it “just right” with a small sledge hammer.   Sometimes it cracked open perfect, sometimes we smashed too hard and sometime the nut went flying!

This is how I learned (without knowing it) about scarification, a technique to help tough thick shelled seed to germinate and grow.  The nuts we nicked that flew down the side sloping yard, were able to grow into seedlings.

Once when we had a cousin swap, I took a big paper bag of macadamia nuts to my Aunty Ruth in California (what a hostess gift, such an elegant bountiful paper bag!)

I told them how we cracked mac nuts at home.  But no!  Californians have a better plan!  And my Uncle Merle was an Engineer.  He had a vise in the garage.  It was a big thrill for my cousins’ many friends in their neighborhood, to come over and everyone got a turn cracking a nut. (Sort of like Tom Sawyer getting all his pals to paint the fence, I later thought, with a laugh!)  Akamai uncle Merle!

My Aunty then roasted the nuts in the oven and covered them with chocolate.  Back home we generally just ate them raw.

I told Joan all of this and how my friend Nyna Weisser had researched nut crackers online and found a great one.  Not cheap but perfect cracking.  Nyna would hand us nuts and the cracker at a party.  Fun for all the friends!

Joan Takamori and I also spoke about how macadamia nuts are another tree that more of us should propagate and grow.

They are a pretty tree with deep green ruffly leaves and very pretty and fragrant flower stalks.  If you look closely at the flowers you will see that they look like miniatures of one of our favorite modern-day Florist ornamentals: Proteas.

Mac nuts are in the Proteaceae plant family and they are native to Australia.

 I asked Joan about where her folks got their macadamia tree.  She didn’t remember it being in the yard forever, and She has a theory. 

‘My dad did bonsai  my mom didn’t drive; she knew how to catch bus everywhere. I think she stole that tree from him and set it free in the yard’ says Takamori.

We never had it growing up.   I think mom planted it, maybe about 10-15 years ago.  She wanted to see it flower and fruit, although it would’ve made a kewl bonsai. Its now a very fruitful tree. I want to grow more of them, so I’ve been collecting seedlings, from under her tree to grow and share and plant in my current garden.

Mac nuts need to be scarified to germinate.  The thick hard shell is nicked or filed down a bit so water can penetrate and activate the embryo of the seed to grow.  Plant them in pots with quality potting mix, and water daily, until they get big enough to go into the ground.

You can also buy them already growing.  Ask for them at your favorite garden shop.  Or for even more fun, call ahead and visit a fruit tree specialty nursery.  Buy some mac nut trees to grow  and maybe another fruit tree for a friend or neighbor to grow.