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Today was one of those days when work came first, therefore we bring you Tuesday's Texture a bit late. Behold the beauty of the Cycad.

WONDER TWIN POWERS.... ACTIVATE!

Two  Melodious Laughing Thrush  babies waiting patiently for mama and breakfast.

Last week we noticed that the adult Melodious Laughing Thrush was gathering mouth fulls of seed and flying off into the brush. A day or two later we discovered these little twins chirping up a storm while mama was off gathering more seed. I love how they look like little grumpy old men. Here is a link to a video we posted back in April of last year of the adult MLT singing to it's reflection in our shed window.

Mama MLT stocking up on seed. She reminds me of a
PEZ Dispenser.

Dispensing of the seed.

Bellies full, they waddle off across the driveway.

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Yesterday we received the Jane Mount painting we bought from The Curiosity Shoppe and it came wrapped in this heart shaped bubble wrap. Lauren said someone sent it to them and she thought we would appreciate it and wrapped our painting in it. Appreciate we did. When John saw it he exclaimed, "that's sick".

MAUI GOLD

Some of you might recall that we posted news about MAUI LAND & PINEAPPLE shutting down it's pineapple operation back in December 2009. Well not long after the news came, we got word that Hali'imaile Pineapple Company was going to take on 1000 acres.

Today we read this article in Maui News that is very encouraging 6 months into the new operations.

When we heard of the operations shutting down in December we began thinking we needed to get more pineapple in the ground. So in April we finally got around to moving the old pineapple patch and planting an all new one. The old area where they had been for the lat 3 years was rather depleted and the dirt was really compacted. We relocated the plants along with about 10 new ones into a new mound in the garden. Pineapple seem to do well when planted in loose soil and close together. Besides, it sure makes water a whole lot easier.

Below are some images from our recent pineapple patch relocation.Stay tuned... it only takes about 22 months for pineapple to be ready for the picking.

Store bought Maui Gold pineapples are only $2.79 at Costco.

Cut the tops off the pineapple and let air dry a few days then place in water until roots form. Usually in a week or so.

Pull off some of the bottom leaves so that about 1"of the stalk is bare before letting air dry and placing in water.

We prepared this mound for the relocation of the old pineapple patch.

We added rich mulch and perlite to the soil so that the roots could take hold. The mulch and perlite also help to keep the soil moist.

The old pineapple patch. These actually look pretty good, but most were not even rooted. The ground was just too hard and depleted of nutrients.

While my mom and nick were here back in April, Nick helped us relocate the old pineapple plants, some of which did not survive as well as  adding in about 10 new plants from the Costco purchases.

The patch as it was this morning. Most have actually doubled in size and are firmly rooted. Looking to add in3 more this week.

Detail showing new growth.

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Rocks and Silver Trumpet Tree or Tree Of Gold petals.

THINK PINK

A few days behind in the continuing flora series. Here are some pink flowers blooming now. Stay tuned for red and purple... the last 2 in the series.

Pink Trumpet Or Pink Tecoma and Silver Trumpet Tree or Tree Of Gold

Pink Trumpet Or Pink Tecoma

Hot pink Plumeria at sunset.

Candy Stripe Plumeria

Candy Stripe Plumeria open

Double Pink Hibiscus and Madagascar Periwinkle

Pink Ginger or ‘Awapuhi – Ula’Ula

SCRAPING THE BOTTOM OF THE JAR V2.0

Some of you may remember we were looking for a very particular jar scraper last year and thanks to our reader Toko, we found it. She suggested we try TJ's in Wailuku and sure enough…there it was. So we bought 3 and a ton of sweet treats. The Frango pineapple coconut mints were from a stop at Macy's though.

BIG NAHALO to Toko for steering us in the right direction.

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Rain on Slate Tiles.

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Slug blending in with the newly stained sidewalk.

MELLOW YELLOW

We are still out of our blooming minds here on Maui and today want to share with you SOME of the yellow flowering plants that are brightening up our world.

Two indigenous trees Ma'o or Hawaiian Cotton and
Milo.

The small yellow flowers here on the Banana plant will one day be full grown bananas.

Yellow Alder or Sundrops are an obnoxious weed that can get about 8 feet wide and 5 feet high. We just pulled about 100 of them, but left about 50 in the gulch because the bee's love them.

The Cup of Gold is a large flower that smells like coconut suntan lotion.

The plumeria here are indeed white, but we identify them by the color of the center. Some have more pink, some more yellow some all white,

Plumeria.

We think this is called
Chenopodium Oahuense or Hawaiian Goosefoot.

Trimeza Lily.

This is called a Yellow Canna Lily, but it's not a lily at all. The seed pods to the left dry up and inside are small black seeds that drop to the ground which produce more and more cannas. The seeds are used for jewelry as well as 'uli'uli.

Allamanda

This Silver Trumpet Tree or Tree Of Gold, is not really silver at all as it boasts yellow flowers. Perhaps it's mainly called a Silver Trumpet  because of it's somewhat silvery leaves and bark.

This Silver Trumpet Tree or Tree Of Gold was on it's last leg when we arrived here 3 years ago. It was nearly on it's side and we had it staked for over a year bring it back to it's full glory and has actually gotten about 4-5 feet of new growth.

Silver Trumpet Tree or Tree Of Gold and
Pink Trumpet Or Pink Tecoma side by side in the gulch. More on the pink coming up in a the Pink post.

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Coconut fiber from the trunk of a young Coconut Palm.

HOT PLANTS

Here are a few, ok a lot, of orange flowers blooming now. I'm sad to say that none of them really have a fragrance. But who needs to smell good when you look this hot? More colors soon.

Bird of Paradise

Hibiscus and Cosmos

African Tulip Tree We would love a yellow version of the African tulip tree.
Hibiscus kokio is an endemic species here in Hawai'i. We have 3 other Hawaiian Hibiscus that are not blooming right now.
We would love a yellow version of the African tulip tree.

I think this is aHeliconia Wagneriana.

I originally thought this was a Kafir Lily but recently found out that it is in fact a Barbados Lily.

Still looking for what these 2 Hibiscus are called.

Oleander and Ixora

Heliconia Latispatha and Parrot Heliconia

WHITE NOW 2.0

Guava

Yesterday's white flower post was just half of the whites we have blooming around here right now. I tried to narrow it down, but there are too many beauties to not share as many as possible. So here are some more...

Female Papaya Flower

Male Papaya Flowers and Male flowers used on a cake. As you can see the males grow in clusters and the females grow as single flowers. I like to use the male flowers because 1, they smell amazing and 2, it's ok to pick the males as they do not produce fruit.

Asparagus Fern. These little buggers are not really a fern and full of thorns that are like splinters. The smell early in the morning when the sun warms them is like hot buttered popcorn.

Madagascar Periwinkle. We have this in about 3 other colors as well.

Now we have been told this is a number of things, but we are pretty sure it's a Yellow Lemon Guava. It bears small pear shaped fruits about 1 1/2" long and tastes like a combo of bananas and grapes.

Spider Lilies