Plumeria

 Plumeria are associated with with the leis given I welcome made by stringing many of these flowers together. I am certain I have written about plumeria before.

One of the characteristics of this flower I find interesting is that flowers appear before leaves. This has never made sense to me because I assumed the leaves were necessary for a plant to create the resources to produce the flowers. The bloom you see above is actually on the lower right-hand corner of the tree you see here. I walk by many plumeria trees to and from one of the coffee shops I visit. When the first blooms appear on low branches I speculate that they will not there the next day because women and those looking to impressive them pick these flowers to place behind their ear. Once the rate of blooms picks up this is not a problem. 

I recently, I observed what I saw several trees that looked like Plumeria with leaves, but no flowers. I speculated that there may be several species differing on this characteristic. A check with one of my AI tools suggests that this is the case. I know nothing about these plants so I am going with this possibility.

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Yes, there are different kinds of plumeria that exhibit different blooming behaviors. While most common varieties are deciduous and follow a specific seasonal cycle, the timing of their flowers relative to their leaves depends largely on the species and the specific cultivar.

Flowering Before Leaves (Deciduous Types)

Many common plumeria varieties, particularly those within the Plumeria rubraspecies, are known for flowering before they produce a full set of leaves.

• Dormancy Cycle: These plants drop their leaves in the winter to conserve water. As temperatures rise and days lengthen in the spring, the plant "wakes up."
• Early Blooms: It is very common for a plumeria to produce an inflorescence (flower stalk) at the tip of a bare branch before the leaf buds have fully opened. This results in a striking look where clusters of flowers appear on what looks like a "broomstick" or bare branch.
• Examples: Varieties like 'Calcutta Star' and many other P. rubra cultivars often show this behavior, blooming in late spring while the foliage is still just beginning to emerge Epic Gardening.

Leaves Before or With Flowers (Evergreen and Certain Deciduous Types)

Some plumeria types are more likely to have established foliage by the time they bloom, or they may not lose their leaves at all.

• Evergreen Species: Species such as Plumeria obtusa (often called the "Singapore" plumeria) and Plumeria pudica (Bridal Bouquet) are evergreen or semi-evergreen in warm climates. Because they retain their leaves year-round, they naturally have leaves present when they begin their blooming cycle Wisconsin Horticulture.
• Vegetative Growth First: Even among deciduous types, environmental factors like heavy spring rains or high-nitrogen fertilization can sometimes trigger "vegetative growth" (leaves) before the plant decides to put energy into an inflorescence.
• Species Differences: Plumeria pudica is famous for its spoon-shaped leaves that remain on the plant nearly all year, providing a lush green backdrop for its white flowers Wisconsin Horticulture.

Summary of Differences

• Plumeria rubra: Typically deciduous; often flowers on bare wood in early spring before leafing out.
• Plumeria obtusa: Evergreen; has shiny, blunt-tipped leaves present during flowering.
• Plumeria pudica: Evergreen; features unique spoon-shaped leaves that are almost always present when the plant blooms.

In general, if you see a plumeria blooming on a completely bare branch, it is likely a P. rubra variety that has just come out of dormancy. If the plant is lush and green while blooming, it is either an evergreen species or a deciduous one that has already progressed further into its growing season Florida Colors Plumeria.

New Case New Stickers

 I first.became one of the sticker people - those folks who feel the need to put stickers on their water bottles and computers - during a previous visit to Kauai. I used to think that stickers defiled the purity of computational devices, but sending a message about yourself when people looked at the back of your laptop while you were engaged in a creative activity gradually overruled my original resistance. I have had people comment on my stickers - maybe because they were amazed that an old guy was just that cool.

Anyway, my original iPad case began to annoy me because it was thick and I sometimes had difficulty getting the buttons to response. So I purchased another case. Now, I am back in Kauai where it all began and I am trying to replicate the original collection of stickers.

So, I have replicated “Slow Yourself Down” (Wishing Well) and “Java Kai”. Smokey The Bear I can probably find later in the summer from a National Park, but the sticker from Alaska is a very long shot. I don’t know exactly where it was from and some of the stops from the ship would be impractical to duplicate. I think I will wait rather than have a Kauai only collection.

Allerton Garden

Allerton and McBride Gardens are adjacent to one another and now part of the National Botanical Garden Network. We have visited these gardens before, and although you see pretty much the same things each time you take the guided tour, your guide has their own interests, and what you learn can be quite different. You can search this site to see what I had to say in other years. This focuses on the unique insights I picked up this time.

The Allerton Gardens are best understood as interconnected outdoor rooms where the Allertons liked to entertain (their home was small). Many of these rooms contained water features and it was the sophistication of the design of these water features caught my attention.

For example, in the following two water features, you can see the effort to capture reflections of the structures that were also designed by the Allertons. In the second image, the progression of turbulence in the sequence of pools creates images in the tradition of different painters, from more to less realistic. 

In this garden, the water feature's design is intended to encourage relaxation. The sound of running water, meant to mimic the heart, was created to aid relaxation. I tried to capture this sound in the short video.

These areas were largely committed to the raising of sugar cane before the big agricultural companies moved on. The constant demand of this crop so depleted the soil that the open areas have yet to recover and now appear as what might seem might seem pasture land.

I just had to throw this one in. Wild pigs are a menace to agriculture and carefully landscaped areas in Kauai. They trap pigs much the same way as we have seen bears trapped in other areas we have visited.

Mandala

 I often write about the unusual foods and eateries we have encountered. We have spent several winters in Kauai, and it is a small island, so there has not been many opportunities to report on something new. Mandala is new to us. It is located in the strange community of Anahola, which, it seems, is made from metal shipping containers. We had thought Mandala was a coffee truck and intended to stop by someday. When we finally decided it was time, we found it was quite different from what we had anticipated.

Mandala was far from a coffee shop and I am not certain you could get a coffee there. Mandala Living Foods describes itself as a gourmet café, elixir bar, and kombucha brewery. I would say high-end hippie vegetarian.

The dish closest to the camera is pad thai, which is my "go to" when eating at places like this. However, the noodles are not grain-based and was something fashioned from a vegetable - sesame zucchini noodles. Drinks were a golden milk and a coffee fix (not coffee, but something described as healthy - Our coffee alternative blend of dandelion, chicory root, and burdock root that creates an earthy aroma that's delicious warm or over ice). 

Mowing

 I have long been fascinated by the sheer mass of vegetation here and by all the work and workers required to maintain control. Guinea Grass is an invasive plant that grows in such density that a person would find it difficult to walk through an area where it has taken over. You find this vegetation along most of the roads and the equipment deployed to keep it away from roadsides has always been something I wanted to capture in a photograph. I finally had the opportunity yesterday.

Equipment such as this mower cannot always do the job, and the common guard rails that are needed beside the roads are a significant challenge due to the terrain. We used to see laborers with weed whackers clearing the grass that grew close to these barriers. Last year and much more commonly this year, they seem to have resorted to herbicides of some type to deal with this problem. I am not certain if there were environmental or financial issues with this approach in the past, but what looks like RoundUp now seems to be common.