
This past Saturday, our Big Island Self-Sustainability group (BISS) met to celebrate the Summer Solstice with a potluckat the home of one of the founding members, Kele, in Hilo. I love living in Ocean View, but I have to admit to more than a little envy when I see what can happen in a yard where there is actual soil and rain to help things grow.
These pictures are in order as I walked around the outside of his home. There were surprises with every step. I won’t try to give you the names of everything I saw, but most of you will recognize banana trees, and the amarylis in the foreground.

You might say that his entire garden is a banana grove.


Even with a house (and more flowering plants) on one side, the banana grove feeling remained.

The path curved down away from most of the bananas, guiding me around the corner of the house.

For those of you who are familiar with the tobacco plant, you might be surprised at the small size of the leaves on this specimen. Perhaps if it was in the ground instead of a pot, it would look more like the tobacco most of us know.

Oops! More bananas, plus some great-looking papayas!

These are ornamental bananas, a pretty pink, but not for eating!

And yet more bananas about ready for chopping off the tree.

Sometimes there are pieces of interest that are not growing.

I got a few ideas for how to handle some of my pots from Kele.

The bananas don’t seem to stop!

Here’s one of the striking spots of color.

A simply stunning display! Too bad I had to get a car in the background.

The bright blue ginger provides a colorful background for the salmon cannas.

And this takes me back to the driveway entrance to Kele’s home.

I had no idea that Betty Crocker offers landscape awards. Some of the community groups sponsor these awards here in Hawai`i and each year, they encourage local residents to nominate someone they believe has an unbelievable garden. There are four categories, and Kele won this year. He’ll be flying to Honolulu soon to accept the award. I think you’ll agree that his yard certainly deserves it.
Congratulations, Kele, and thank you for letting me share this beauty with my readers.
A hui hou!