Brilliant Shower Trees of Hawaii

Aloha Folks,

I have had my eye on a few blooming Shower Trees lining Baldwin Ave heading down to Paia for months. They are show stopping, and today I finally stopped to take pictures. The golden yellow ones have lost most of their blossoms, but the Rainbow Shower Tree will sport blossoms up until Nov. Their blooming season is quite long with the peak of color happening in July. The trees are tough and adaptable, great landscaping statements.

The official tree of Honolulu is the Rainbow Shower Tree. The sunset color of the Rainbow Shower Tree is a brilliant fusion of pink and yellow.

I used to have a very, very large, old fashioned Pink Shower Tree in my yard. . It had the big messy pods, and I spent alot of time cleaning them up. Now, the hybrids have been bred to be pod less. A few years ago on a very windy Kona day, the big old shower slowly fell over into my koi pond. It was quite an operation to clear the tree. I called on my wood worker friend, Cole Waren, to come and cut the massive precariously perched trunk. I enticed him with the goods in exchange for a large salad bowl. I had a feeling he would be able to turn a number of bowls from the thick trunk.

What a great trade! I am so happy with my beautiful bowl. The curly grain reminds me of koa. The bowl started out a golden color and is a bit darker now. It is really handsome and I feel lucky having a bowl from a tree that grew on this property for probably one hundred years.

Hawaii is so bountiful! I am also posting a picture of the Awapuhi ginger that a friend just gave me. These are the largest and juiciest blossoms I have ever seen. The Hawaiians used this succulent flower to shampoo their hair. I have been using the same few blossoms for a couple of days, and they have such a sweet fragrance.

I have always made it a practice to utilize all that I have, and re-cycle and re-use as much as I can. It only makes sense to me living on an island, and it is fun, re-warding and challenging.

So, as our own Jack Johnson sings for the school kids, "re-duce, re-use , re-cycle" and I'll add "re-think."

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend enjoying time with loved ones!

Much Aloha,
Cherie