With Hawaii’s favorable climate and rainfall, the clients of Greg Boyer Landscape Corp have the opportunity to create a residential design filled with plants from around the world. These new homeowners love flowering plants and those with a scent are enjoyed even more. Flowering trees like Plumeria, Hong Kong Orchid, Stemmadenia, Paklan and Tonga Tabu offer flowers with tropical fragrances that are stirred by the gentle Hawaiian trade winds.

Plumeria trees come in many types, but there are generally two varieties: the evergreen ones which are the Singapore varieties that keep their leaves year-round and the Hawaiian varieties that will defoliate in the winter.  Both have their place in a tropical garden design.

The Singapore Plumeria is favored by many in Hawaii because they don’t drop leaves like the Hawaiian varieties. However, the Singapore is plagued by every bug known to man, especially the troublesome white fly. The flower of the Singapore Plumeria is white and too soft to be used in leis or over the ear.

The Hawaiian Plumeria may be a messy tree, but the flower comes in an assortment of colors, usually with a strong scent and hardiness that allows them to be used in lei making. The scented flower will last all day behind your ear, or they can be floated in a small bowl to bring the tropical scent into your home.

The Tonga Tabu is another scented tree with small white flowers that cannot be used for leis or behind the ear, but it is an ideal tree for the garden. The flowers are smaller than the Plumeria flower and they grow in a fragrant cluster. This small to medium size tree is evergreen and the bugs don’t like it.

A purple variety of Tonga Tabu is new to the plant industry and is very interesting with its green-to-purple foliage and slightly scented orange-yellow-pink flower color. The landscape nursery staff at Greg Boyer Landscape Corp is currently experimenting with this stunning variety for use in future garden designs.

Citrus is generally used for its fruit value, but surprising to most people, it also produces a wonderfully strong scented flower. To promote healthy flower development throughout your tropical garden, choose a fertilizer with a high phosphorus formulation similar to “Bud and Bloom.” You can use this fertilizer on the orchids and gardenias in your garden as well. And, remember — the more citrus flowers you have, the more fruit you will produce later.

Homeowners in Hawaii can create the tropical garden design of their dreams with a beautiful fragrance to match. If you want to achieve a garden full of wonderful scents from the tropics, contact the landscape professionals at Greg Boyer Landscape Corp today at (808) 239-8264 or visit their website for a complete list of services.