Restoring Hawai`i’s Plants, Backyard by Backyard
A Kaua`i man called me the other day after reading an article I’d written on forest birds. Some wedgetail shearwaters were nesting near his coastal home, and he wanted to tell me about them. He was worried, thinking their burrows needed more protection, and disappointed that the state and federal wildlife officials he’d called had been rather blasŽ about his discovery.
I was touched by his concern, which isn’t something I encounter all that often. So I listened to him talk about the wedgies and other birds he’d noticed around his yard, the giant tar ball he’d removed from the beach, programs he’d watched on marine dumping and his belief that plastic ocean litter was increasing, based on the staggering amounts he regularly collected.
I told him the best protection for the wedgies was having a neighbor like him, and I congratulated him for being attuned to his own backyard. It is within our immediate communities that we can often make the most difference, because it is here that we have the opportunity to consistently observe the little bits of nature around all around us. That awareness builds intimacy, and we come to know when things are going well, or something is amiss.
Kerin Lilleeng-Rosenberger has put that philosophy to work in both the front and back yards of her `Oma`o, Kaua`i, home. For years she took the seeds and cuttings that collectors brought her, propagating thousands of native Hawaiian plants at the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) in Lawa`i. She grew plants for NTBG and its satellite gardens, for state agencies, for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and various special projects. But too often, she said, the seedlings languished in the nursery when planting programs were delayed by shortages of funds and shifting priorities.
“When I got tired of watching plants die in the nursery, or we’d have extras, I started bringing them home, rescuing them,” Lilleeng-Rosenberger said. Her first salvage effort was a Munroidendron racemosum, and she still speaks with wonder about how it is found naturally only on Kaua`i, and nowhere else in the world.
Before long, she and her husband, George Rosenberger, had decided to devote part of their 1.5-acre yard to Hawaiian natives. The move was partly motivated by her fondness for the plants themselves, but she was also keen to do a bit of research. Up to 75 percent of her seedlings died after outplanting, and she’d heard “all the excuses” for the high mortality rate. Lilleeng-Rosenberger was skeptical about the inherent fragility of Hawaii’s endemic flora, and wanted to see for herself. “I knew it was a people problem, not the plants, but they always blame it on the plants. Their [endemics’] whole survival niche is adaptability. If they can’t adapt on their own island, they wouldn’t have gotten this far.”
Lo and behold, Lilleeng-Rosenberger now has koa, maile, mokihana and `ohi`a thriving at her home, which sits at an elevation of just 300 feet. “People always say these plants only grow in the mountains, but before man arrived and cleared the lower forests, they used to be everywhere. We only find them now in the mountains, so we assume that’s the only place they will live.”
In just nine years she has planted more than 50 different species of natives in four distinct sections that together encompass about a quarter-acre. She’s got about all the trees she can handle, but is looking forward to expanding her collection of understory vegetation. The native areas are interspersed among fruit trees, herbs, vegetables and other edible plants. “I like a useful yard,” she said. “If I can’t eat it or make a tea from it, I’m not that interested.” Natives, however, have earned a place “because they deserve the respect.”
Lilleeng-Rosenberger’s success at landscaping with natives has reinforced her belief that the future of Hawaii’s imperiled flora lies in the backyards of island residents. “It’s almost an impossible task to restore the native forests, so that’s why it’s important to get people planting them in their yards at least.”
She also warns against the complacent belief that botanical gardens will always preserve Hawai`i’s plants, noting that their missions and objectives can quickly change. Even NTBG’s native garden, the largest in the state, has been abandoned a few times. Currently, she said, very little money and attention are directed to studying and protecting Hawai`i’s endemic flora, which she finds “so beautiful, uniquely beautiful.”
Like many people, Lilleeng-Rosenberger was charmed by the colorful and fragrant plants that thrived around Hilo, where she moved with her family at the age of 13. And like many others, malihini and kama`aina alike, she thought plumeria, red hibiscus and ti were Hawai`i’s heritage plants. It wasn’t until 1986, when she was working as a bartender, volunteering at NTBG and taking horticulture classes at Kaua`i Community College, that she first heard about the islands’ true natives and how rare many are. She was intrigued, but frustrated at how difficult it was to learn more about these species.
“The subject just isn’t being taught,” she said. “In horticulture classes, the emphasis is all on introduced species for mass production nurseries, or Polynesian introductions. I would have flourished in school if I’d had that for a subject – Hawai`i’s glorious endemics. ”
In 1989 Lileeng-Rosenberger was hired by the Hawai`i Plant Conservation Center to grow native seedlings on Kaua`i, and by the next year NTBG had built a nursery. Soon she was growing nothing but natives, many of them collected in the wild for the first time. “No one was down there in the nursery telling me what to do, because no one else knew, it was so new.” In her spare time, she read everything she could get her hands on – “I read the Manual of Flowering Plants like some people read love stories” – and pumped NTBG botanists for more advanced instruction.
“I wanted to know everything,” she said. “I was totally empty on information and they filled me up. I was just relentless. My goal was to grow every endemic plant. And I never gave up on anything at NTBG, even if it looked dead or there hadn’t been any growth in a year.”
Before leaving NTBG earlier this year, Lilleeng-Rosenberger had grown thousands of plants. Even more important, she kept meticulous records, filling 14 personal notebooks with her observations on everything from germination rates to growing mediums to the impact of chemical fertilizers and insecticides. She has compiled her research on propagating all the indigenous and endemic Hawaiian plants into a comprehensive, common-sense manuscript that is awaiting publication.
“I want people to grow these plants and stop being afraid of them and listening to the myths,” she said. “At the nurseries, they force-feed (with fertilizers) to get things bigger, prettier, to sell better. Native plants die from this treatment and are then labeled ‘too sensitive.’ Some of the natives aren’t fast-growers, or may take up to a year to propagate. These plants do need a little more TLC and it seems to be the kind of world we’ve become where we want everything fast and if it isn’t fast, it’s no good. Natives are like Hawaiian style, slow by slow.”
Lilleeng-Rosenberger is now taking her talents to the state Division of Forestry’s high-elevation nursery in Kokee, and is eager to learn more about Kaua`i’s endemics and help get a solid propagation program established.
“I thought anyone could grow plants, but I’ve learned that’s not true, so I must have a gift,” she said, noting that her maiden name (Lilleeng) means “little meadow” in Norwegian and green thumbs seem to run in her family. “It may sound corny, but maybe I’m successful because I truly care about these plants and I get so excited to this day when I see them germinate.”
That’s one reason why “I really don’t want to push people to grow natives. I don’t want to have to convince people of their beauty.” The plants, she believes, belong in the yards of those who appreciate the gray tone and the uniqueness of the vegetation, and don’t mind a plant “that blooms when it feels like it.”
But Lilleeng-Rosenberger said spending a decade immersed in Hawa`ii’s native plants has done more than transform her backyard; it has given her entire life new meaning. “My work makes me feel useful, like I’m helping the underdog.” That’s important to a woman who recalls that as a child in Detroit, she used to beat up the boys who bullied those smaller than themselves. Now her sympathies are directed toward Hawai`i’s troubled native plants.
“They’re silent and they can’t speak for themselves,” she said. “I just want to help them flourish. I felt depressed, but that’s why I decided to do something about it, in my own small way. The outside world is so frustrating to me because of the lack of caring for nature. But at least I can do something about it in my own yard.”
— Joan Conrow
Volume 11, Number 3 September 2000
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