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Hawaii Island Landscape Association better known as HILA is inviting those interested in the future of Hawaiian landscapes to the Eleventh Biennial Landscape Conference to be held at the Westin Hapuna Beach Hotel, Friday October 23rd. HILA membership is made up of landscape architects, contractors, arborists, maintenance folks, and many others involved in the green industry.

It is all about “urban reforestation” to create and maintain our beautiful island scenes.
The theme this year is Regenerative Landscaping Feeding the Future.
The public is invited to participate, so mark your calendar. More information will be covered in the next garden columns.

For details call UHCTAR Extension Agent Ty McDonald at 808 322-4892 or hilahawaii.com/annual-conference.

It is important to recognize the many faceted dimensions of creating and maintaining a landscape mood. Some border on a sense the spiritual.

The scent of flowers perfume the air and sets a tropical, romantic mood whether you live mauka or makai. By adding more flowering plants to your area, you can combat unpleasant smells like car exhaust fumes or rubbish cans. There are many good choices for your garden. Visitors often comment about the fragrant air when they first arrive. Most airports in other parts of the world smell of jet fuel. Here, the scent of Plumeria, pikake, orange blossoms and, of course, grapefruit, lime, lemon, and tangerine blossoms all have delicious fragrance. During the longer days of summer, many species of ginger are in full bloom and in the evening white, yellow and rose flowered Angel Trumpets make for perfect garden romance. But, there are many other less known and more varied plants that can add to our gardens. All the plants listed below have fragrant flowers. Some of them such as plumeria, night blooming jasmine, fragrant dracaena, gardenia and mock orange are equipped with fragrance so potent that it can fill every inch of garden air space and drift into the house, too. Others like the spider lily produce more subtle perfumes that usually won’t travel quite as far and are best appreciated at close range. There are dozens of species of ginger and let us not forget our native alahe’e and Hoawa available at some nurseries. One very striking shade lover is the Brunfelsia. The shrub is a native of South America. Its scientific name is Brunfelsia calycina floribunda. It gets its common name, yesterday-today-and tomorrow, from the fact that the 2-inch tubular, flaring flowers are purple one day, violet the next, and almost white the next. The flowers from chiefly in spring, but sometimes spring through fall, or in spring and again in fall. The plant may grow as high as 10 feet in partial shade, but can be kept as low as 3 feet by pruning. There are many kinds of jasmine as well as several other plants called by that name–including star jasmine and orange jasmine (mock orange) that are not jasmines at all. There are several true jasmines that bloom with fragrant flowers. Jasminum ilicifolium and Jasminum multifolorum are two shrubs used as foundation plantings. They may also be grown as vines and will bloom more profusely. Star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) is a viny shrub. Tie this plant to a post, fence, or some other support and it will climb; or pinch out branch tips and it will cover the ground. The clusters of star-shaped, white flowers contrast nicely with shiny dark green leaves. This vine is sometimes referred to as Maile Jasmine because the leaves resemble Maile. Mock orange (Murraya paniculata) or Orange Jasmine is a member of the citrus family and is an attractive evergreen shrub or small tree with glossy green pinnately-compound leaves. The white, very fragrant flowers are produced at intervals throughout the year, followed by clusters of red ovoid fruit. It is a vigorous grower and may be used as a small tree, an informal high hedge or screen, or may be trimmed to a formal shape. Night blooming jasmine (Cestrum nocturnum) produces flowers with a powerful scent. A single plant per garden should be plenty. These evergreen shrubs grow 6 to 8 feet tall or more and bloom off and on throughout the year. The ever popular plumeria should be found in most gardens, but a close relative is rare. It is known as Tabernaemontana or cinnamon gardenia and was originally introduced by Paul Weissich in 1960 from Africa. Flowers are produced all during the year and have a cinnamon fragrance. The odor is delicate, but one or two flowers perfume the whole garden. Close relatives are Ervatamia (Crepe Jasmine) Cerbera, Stemmadenia and Oleander.

Stop by your local garden shops and nurseries to find these and many others for garden fragrance.