It's been a while since there has been a post, but I'm in high school and there is a lot of work. Here is the new Hawaii greenhouse which has thriving significantly. I've added a dead giant tree fern trunk from the front yard, which acts as a ladder for several climbing vines. As you can see, the I've added a bunch of new plants, but we'll get to that later.
All of the plants have been doing really well and I think it's because of a big heatwave that has happened. Here was today's weather forecast:
As you can see, really extreme weather. Never in San Francisco do we have a low of 69ºF! Most plants in the greenhouse can survive temperatures to about 50ºF, so I'm really glad we had that the low temperature is similar to the low temperature in Hawaii.
Compared with weather in the West Maui mountains, they are quite similar except San Francisco reached temperatures 10 degrees hotter.
To even out the temps in the greenhouse, I've taped temporary plastic black garbage bags to each side.
As you can see here, some of our Microsorum ferns have suffered from the heat before the garbage bags were installed. M. scolopendria/grossum, or the Musk fern, was on the original Hawaii Garden Planting list, made back in June/July. The name grossum comes from the spores on the fern, which is found queasy to look at by some people.
The specimen in the greenhouse was collected from a nursery, and is a similar species.
Above is a golden pothos plant. This is the only other plant that was originally on the Hawaiian planting list. All the other plants were either too large, unattainable, or endangered Although you may recognize this as a house plant, in the wild, golden pothos goes feral.
This is a roadside photo I took in Maui. Every vine you see here is Golden Pothos, and each leaf is more than 8" long. Wild pothos grows on trees, and uses roots to attatch to bark (that's why it's growing up a tree fern in the greenhouse). You might be thinking, is Golden Pothos an invasive species? Yes, this plant is considered a large invasive species in tropical areas. However, there is a low likelihood of pothos becoming invasive outside out of the tropical greenhouse.
Here's the golden pothos growing up the tree fern. It's about 1/3 of the way there.
Next to the golden pothos is related species - a rare species of Philodendron, Philodendron hastatum. Although it is rare in Hawaii, it is very commonly sold under the name "Silver sword Philodendron" as a house plant. Like Golden Pothos, it grows on trees and I expect it to very well in the greenhouse.
To the right of the Philodendron in the photo is one of our original Yellow Dragonfruit plants, grown from seed a year ago.
Here's the official flower of Hawaii: the Hibiscus. Although it doesn't grow wild in Hawaii, I thought it would be cool to have the state flower in the garden. Also, it's flowers are really nice.
The overview of the most of the plants in the rainforest, plus the tropical 'reef tank.'
Tropical plants not discussed in post
Varigrated croton, Codiaeum variegatum.
Peperomia spp.
Cornstalk Dracaena Dracaena fragrans
Ti Cordyline fruticosa. This plant I collected from Hawaii and TSA let it on the plane.
Orchid, unknown type.
Red Mangrove Rhizophora mangle In the maui ocean center, there were some mangrove propagules, so I snuck some through TSA.
We're still adding more!
Here's some plants we want to add:
Dayflower plants for groundcover
More Ti plants because they are cool
Gingers. They are all over Hawaii and the root I bought from the ABC store is dead :( Asher needs some love
Ferns. I know some neighbors who have nice Nephrolepis ferns I could steal from
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