Kimi Ginger Flowers from Honua Lani Gardens

An Arrangement of Kauai Tropical Flowers for Sale.

A decorative palm growing in my garden and the similar seed pods in a tropical arrangement at the flower show.

A Palm Near my Ponds at Honua Lani Gardens

A Splendid Mixed Flower and Foliage Arrangement

In my garden we use structural bamboo to make fences, we also split it to use as decorative wall covering for green houses and other buildings. At the flower show this same bamboo was used to build a beautiful floral sculpture.

Structural Bamboo

Structural Bamboo and Tropical Flowers and Foliage

A Torch ginger stand of flowers in my garden and similar flowers pinned to a wall at the flower show mimic tropical flowers growing in the rainforest.

Pink Torch Ginger Flowers

A Design of Mixed Flowers and Foliage to Look Like a Jungle Setting.

The natural waterfall at Honua Lani Gardens and the floral creation at the Philadelphia International Flower Show.

My Garden Waterfall

The Waterfall at the Philly Show Designed by Bill Schaffer and Kristine Kraftt

Art mimic’s nature! The show for us flower growers is a platform in which we see the beauty we co-create presented to the world. I would like to thank Laura Blanchard for permitting me to use her terrific photos, some she was nice enough to take of our Kauai flowers just for this article. I would also like to thank Linda Sherman and Ray Gordon of The Courage Group. It is with their guidance and patience that my ideas come to fruition.

The Hawaii – Islands of Aloha Philadelphia Flower Show continues through March 11. More posts here about the show.

I would love to hear your thoughts about comparing art and nature as well as the opportunities and inspiration that Kauai provides for creating beautiful artwork.

The Philly show 2012 flower waterfall photo by Kathy Offley htffa.com

One of the things I have been seeing and hearing about this show is how well the Islands and the spirit of aloha are being conveyed, there is hula and chanting on the main stage daily as well as lots of Hawaiian music playing all the time throughout the center. Hawaii and our culture has really been transported to Philly not just our flowers. It might be you can’t bring the flowers without bringing the atmosphere that has generated their scent and beauty in the first place. For the two million people that will walk through the Hawaiian islands in Philadelphia during this week; a love of our islands, its culture, and flowers is sure to bloom!

Tropic fleur from Honua Lani Gardens photo by Kathy Offley

The Kauai association and other vendors from Kauai are in an area called the Hawaiian village. My twitter friend Guen who has the Twitter address of @BG_Garden, is the creator of #gardenchat (a twitter forum for gardeners from across the world) tweeted me yesterday about our group. “I do believe I snapped pictures of your booth yesterday, I’m in heaven in the Hawaiian village.” I also participate on Pinterest, giving me an opportunity to collect articles about the Philadelphia Flower Show in one place.

Click on this image to access this Pinterest board. You can click on the articles you see pinned here from there.

We should be proud of our hard working Kauai flower growers. They are bringing the beauty and aloha of Kauai to the world! I can hardly wait for #gardenchat today. I know there will be some fabulous pictures of the #flowershow (# is used on Twitter to allow us to search for a particular event or theme) from all my friends who frequent this wonderful and informative weekly twitter chat! There is even a mobile phone app for the Philadelphia Flower Show that allows you to judge flower arrangements daily much like the iron chef does, except with flowers.

Protea of Kokee photo by Kathy Offley

One of the great things about being apart of this experience for our members, aside from promoting Kauai’s flowers at the show, is absorbing the culture and vibe of Philadelphia and visiting some great restaurants at the end of a busy day to sample the famous seafood. My mouth was watering when my friend Kathy Offley started talking about how delicious the food is in Philadelphia.

Photo by Kathy Offley for of Lelan Nishek of Kauai Nursery and Landscaping

Tropical Flower Growers of Kauai photo by Kathy Offkey

We have a favorite local saying ‘lucky we stay Kauai’ which means we feel lucky to be on Kauai at this moment but today I think there are thousands of people from all over our great country saying ‘Lucky we stay Philadelphia’. If you love flowers and have a chance to visit the flower show it is a once in a lifetime Hawaiian extravaganza! If you are luckily enough to be at the Hawaiian village, and have time to meet our wonderful Kauai growers and see our flowers, I invite and eagerly await your comments. The flower show runs until Sunday March 11th.

More of my articles about the Philadelphia Flower Show.

Protea picked in Kokee for the flower show.

As a member of the Hawaii Flower and Foliage Association Kauai. I joined our other members including secretary Kathy Offley and president Johnny Gordinas who are my neighbors, picking, cleaning and packing thousands of flowers for the show. Each flower had to be cut and cleaned to perfection so that there was not even an ant remaining or the whole shipment could have been rejected by agriculture inspection. I watched in awe as Johnny and Kathy cleaned and trimmed flowers with lightening speed and placed them in the ever growing buckets of water in Kathy’s walkway. All day last Saturday and early Sunday morning the flowers kept arriving until the area was exploding in color. Protea from Kokee led the pack in beauty and distinction not to be outdone by the gorgeous bee hives in light peach and dark honey, tropic fleur, antherium and a multitude of others.

Tropic fluer and torch gingers

I picked my flowers Saturday afternoon, hurriedly, during a break in the rain. Tropic fleur, red and pin torch gingers, all I hoped destined to the greatest Hawaiian tropical flower show ever. Kathy had told me the torches, while beautiful, might not make the cut, as weight and their longevity made them a risky flower to count on. When I dropped off my flowers, I could not believe how many thousands had already arrived and we were still missing flowers from some of the bigger growers. It became obvious to me that the designers from our association destined for Philly were going to be creating some over the top beautiful arrangements for sale to America at the show. In that moment I realized that many people attending probably have never even seen some of these exceptional flowers and imagined their delight at feasting their eyes on the glory of Kauai’s tropical beauties. There were flowers there I had never even seen before. I was transported by their sheer beauty and quantity!

The Hawaiian Flower and Foliage Association Kauai left for Philly at noon on Wednesday. After arriving they had to spend Thusday unpacking and placing 12,000 stems of flowers and 4,000 pieces of foliage into water and position them so that they could be used to make arrangements for the show. A brutal day for sure for the already stressed members! Today they are creating arrangements with lightening speed, for we envision thousands of eagerly waiting buyers.

The flowers of Kauai on sale in the Hawaii market place at the Philadelphia flower show.

The Hawaii: Islands of Aloha themed Philadelphia International Flower Show (#FlowerShow on Twitter) is known to attract 30,000 people from accross the nation each day from March 4 to March 11, 2012. I have been watching my friend Bill Schaffer’s Facebook site (thank God for social media) and I’m totally amazed at the video of the active volcano he and his finance Kristine Kratt constructed for the flower competition out of 5,000 mostly red flowers including 2,000 antheriums! You have to see this to believe it. Using tropical flowers to create art will be a wave of the future I am sure. Of course they won first place! These popular and talented flower artists were present on Kauai for the Kauai Farm Fair last August to learn about tropical flowers and the culture of Hawaii for their role in this year’s show. Their active volcano not only showcases their huge talent but demonstrates they did their homework. On Wednesday they will get married at the show in front of thousands of their fans.

What a great day for Hawaii, this flower show will promote our state as a beautiful place to visit, full of flowers of aloha as well as assist our flowers growers, designers and florists!

To watch live broadcasts of the show you can go to 6abc.com. They have a live video-cam going and are showing lots of great footage. I have been watching some captivating videos. The booths are so beautiful, high tech and unbelievably original. I urge you to follow the show on Twitter at #FlowerShow also on Monday at #GardenChat, you will not be disappointed but awe struck by what you see.

The flowers of Kauai have arrived! Stay tuned for updates. The show just opened today!

More of my articles about the Philadelphia Flower Show. Would love to hear from you about your experiences or thoughts about the show.

You are invited to preview my new holiday season collection

Star Fruit a delicious tropical fruit.

Star fruit trees here on Kauai are know for their abundance of fruit due to our plentiful tropical rainfall. Because it is a fall bearing fruit and full of vitamin C, it is a great source of health building nutrients.

The star fruit is also high in fiber and low in calories so it is good for anyone on a diet.

Finding recipes that make this slightly tart fruit more palatable has been a passion of mine this season as there are several hundred pounds of fruit on my two trees.

One of the recipes I developed and love the most is the star fruit, tangelo, coconut juice frosty. Start by juicing the star fruit and mixing it with equal parts of tangelo juice (tangelos are also in season) add fresh coco water, to make about one third more juice. Pour into freezer containers and freeze to a slush. Enjoy after a garden project in the heat of the day. This is so refreshing and delicious. It goes straight into your blood stream and replenishes you immediately.

Another great receipe is star fruit salsa. Simply chop three or four medium sized starfruit, add the juice of one lemon, some cilantro and parsley to taste, a clove of finely minced garlic, the tip of a Hawaiian chile pepper and some Hawaiian sea salt. Mix everything together and keep the jar in the refrigerator. I have used this salsa on tacos instead of tomato salsa and it is a refreshing change.

You can also use frozen star fruit to make home made ice cream. Simply put the frozen fruit through the champion juicer (use the white plastic piece that comes with the juicer not the strainer) with other sweet fruits like bananas and jack fruit and make frozen fruit ice cream. The tartness of the star fruit works well with these sweeter fruits to make a delicious cooling healthy desert.

Honua Lani gardens Garden Cart

Between the frosty’s, the ice cream and the salsa we are consuming lots of delicious star fruit this season. We have also dehydrated some star fruit and the concentrated taste is like chewy sweet-sour gummy bears! I have even considered turning the dried stars into Christmas earrings and ornaments.

Do you have a star fruit recipe you would like to share? I would love to hear what you are doing with your star fruit this fall season. Nani Moon Mead makes it into a delicious dry mead wine right in Kapaa town. I would love to hear about other creative ways to use this healthy abundant fruit.

Willing workers Cher and Morgan planting in the gardens

There are numerous ways to build compost piles. I would like to introduce you to a method that works well here in the tropics where we garden all year round and get plenty of rain and sunshine most of the time. Always build your pile in full sunlight if possible, the heat makes it ‘work’ faster and the resulting humus is more broken down and readily available to your plants.

Building a compost pile takes a little preparation. Here in the gardens we plan a few days in advance and gather everything we are going to use and we place these piles of ingredients close to where the compost pile will be built .

The first thing you will need is an abundance of green clippings from grass, trimmings from plants, leaves etc. Another important ingredient is EM a microbial element available at any good garden store (this will greatly speed up the rate at which your pile will break down). You will also need a source of nitrogen. We are lucky at Honua Lani Gardens, we have sustainably raised cattle near by so we gather their droppings.

A pineapple tomato - a great tasting tomato that grows well in Hawaii

Once you have gathered all your materials including your kitchen waste and have your EM brewing, you layer your compost items with soil, watering liberally as you work. Build the pile a minimum of four feet high, douse with EM as you go (I use a watering can) and cover with a good quantity of soil. Water again and cover with a tarp for a couple of months.

Turn the pile a couple of times adding kitchen waste, soil and EM. A pitch fork works wonders for turning the pile and it is good to have someone holding the hose as it will become dry in the sun and you want it to maintain lots of moisture so it will continue to break down.

In about six months the pile will have shrunk about seventy five percent but you will have a dark, almost black, rich soil like substance that crumbles between your fingers. This is *humus and is the best growing medium for your garden. All plants thrive on humus.

Sprinkle three to four inches on top of your beds before you add the straw and work loosely into the soil for best results. Plant your starters immediately.

Humus can also be added when the plant is half grown to boost its vigor and bring on strong mature plants ready for harvest.

Make composting fun for all. It is gold for your garden so get the kids and your friends involved when you build and turn your pile. Many hands make light work.

Enjoy a garden lunch together when you are done. Celebrate the good you are doing for yourselves, your environment and your garden! It is worth celebrating recycling your waste and creating strong sustainable plants for you and your family to eat.

Please share your tips or questions about composting. I would be delighted to hear from you.