Planting native Hawaiian plants in your yard

Planting native Hawaiian plants in your yard is one of the many things you can do to support the lowland environment. When they reach maturity, birds and animals have an opportunity to help spread their seeds as they too often do non-native plant species. With ferns, it is the wind that helps to spread spores into neighboring areas. You can feel good about spreading native species rather than invasive species!

Among the original groundcover existing in Hawai’i’s lowland rainforest are:

‘Ala‘ala wai nui – Peperomia sp

 

Kamanamana – Adenostemma lavenia

When our efforts began in Keau’ohana, there were only a couple small clusters of the Kamanamana; today it is widespread throughout our forest site. It is an easy plant to grow; we invite you to come collect seeds on a volunteer day in the forest! That is also easy, as the seeds are very sticky, and like to hitch hike home with you of their own volition.