This past June I was fortunate enough to go on a lovely vacation to Maui. One highlight was a stop at Haleakala park. The summit and hiking and always legendary, but this time we took a guided ranger-led birding tour of the Waikamoi preserve near the middle of the mountain. The parking lot looked like grassy sloped hills covered in native Hawaiian shrub. However, the hike into the preserve revealed forests of
Ohia Lehua and
Koa trees.
I have a small Ohia plant in my home garden, but it hasn't been looking
too healthy recently. I'm not sure why this is, and I took some cuttings
to try and start a new healthier plant to hedge my bets. There's no
point in my posting a picture of the now dead cuttings, but please keep
your fingers crossed that one day my little Ohia will grow to be like
the ones in Haleakala.
Also on Maui, we stopped at the
Maui Nui botanical gardens in Kahului. I would recommend them to any visitor to the island. They have tons of native plants, including many alula and ihi, which of course made me ridiculously excited. They also had striped banana trees and some lovely varieties of sugar cane.
