A throng of landscapers, farmers, and residents showed up for Sterile Landscape Tree Field Day at the Waimānalo Research Station, hosted by Ken Leonhardt and Alberto Ricordi of the Dept. of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences. Since then, CTAHR has fielded multiple requests for an encore performance.
“People who were unable to attend want us to repeat the field day,” says Ken. “The Honolulu City & County Division of Urban Forestry alone would like to send 12 people to our next event,” adding, “I wish to recognize Alberto for his excellent organization of the day.”
The purpose of the field day was to introduce the landscape industry to new, seedless selections of African tulip trees, monkey pod trees, shower trees, octopus trees, and gall wasp-resistant selections of the tall wili wili for use as windbreak hedges,’ Ken explains. Propagation material of the windbreak wili wili is available for free.
Jari Sugano of Oʻahu Extension notes, “As the trees surrounding them flowered beautifully, the inquiring public was treated to a very hands-on sharing of research and experiences by Ken, Richard, and Alberto – the essence of what CTAHR stations and Extension gardens are designed to do.”
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In related news, Extension’s Russell Galanti presented “Low Elevation Tolerant Leucospermum Variety Trials Seminar and Field Day” at the Urban Garden Center and then at Two Bees Farm in Waialua – both heavily attended by the public.
“I am very impressed with the dedication, enthusiasm, organizational skills and crop knowledge of our new Extension agents, and for their use of social media platforms to inform their stakeholders,” says Ken.