Landscape Inspiration- Hawaii

On my last trip to Kauai I was in to mood for hiking and exploring some areas inland that I had never been before. The hikes were up in the mountainous Koke'e State Park and all ended in spectacular views of the North side of the island. As I was hiking along I was of course checking out all of the plants growing up there in the wild, and I was struck by how different the plants up there were from the usual ones seen in tropical styled landscapes. It occurred to me that it might be possible to create a landscape that evokes that tropical feeling, in the Pacific Northwest, using plants that grow more easily here.  

Grassy meadow facing a hillside of trees.

The bright green foliage is such a nice contrast with the darker green foliage and twisty grey branches of the trees.

Hillside of trees and bright green ferns.

Huge ferns and moss covered trees are a bit like the Oregon coast.

There were a lot of commonalities with our own temperate rainforest climate, mainly the abundance of ferns everywhere.  They were predominant under the canopy of trees. One of the main differences was the lack of conifers.  Most trees and shrubs were broad leafed, and the trees were very open with branches exposed. There were hardly any flowers in bloom, leaving a palette of a variety of intense greens against the red or grey earth. There were some tall grasses with plumes at the top that made a nice contrast with all the other vegetation. 

High up in the State Park is a swamp that had a very unique feeling.  It was covered in very low grey shrubs with red bottle brush type flowers, grasses and bright ferns.  With all the low clouds wafting around and the bog water it seemed like a dinosaur was about to appear around the bend.

Akalai swamp

At a certain point on our hike the air was filled with perfume and buzzing with the sound of bees.  There was a whole hillside full of yellow flowers in bloom, and the bees were going nuts over them. The shapes of the flower parts reminded me of honeysuckle, which could be a good substitute here for the same effect.  I was surprised at how many wild honey bees there were in the forest. We came across two hives right next to the trail. So honeybees can be an authentic addition to a tropical garden.

And of course if you really want to make your garden feel like the garden isle just add a few chickens running around begging for food for a truly authentic feeling.

Later we went to one of the national botanical gardens there and saw plenty of the unusual tropical flowers that would only work in a greenhouse here, or perhaps a sunroom. Substitutions for these in  Pacific Northwest landscape could be plants in the lily family like mondo grass, solomon's seal, daylilies, etc; broadleaf evergreen trees with shiny thick leaves like magnolia trees or madrones, plants with bright colored berries like beautyberry or strawberry trees, and evergreen ground covers like dwarf periwinkle.