Sunday afternoon I found myself in a wine tasting room near the top of Haleakala, a brooding dormant volcano on the Island of Maui in Hawaii. The time change is a bit significant between Hawaii and the UK, but I think it probably is already Monday in the UK so I decided to borrow these vases for my post.
These are Queen Emma Crinum Lilies cut from the grounds of Maui Wine, located in Ulupalakua in the Upcountry of Maui. Another vase on the bar held Anthuriums, also from the grounds. The bar itself is 20 feet long and made from slices of an old Mango tree. Probably my favorite bar ever and the wines are pretty good. I bought 3 bottles. Call me girly, I like the Pineapple Wine.
The winery grows grapes and produces wine from grapes and pineapples. It is situated below a cloud forest of (among other things) Eucalyptus, Norfolk Pines and purple flowering Jacaranda trees. The tasting room is set in a lovely garden, Jade Vines cascade from a pergola, Agapanthus line the walkways, and tropical perennial beds surround a ring of wood sculptures emulating hula dancers. A misty rain was falling as we made our way up the mountain into the clouds. When the clouds part, the views of the coast sprawling below are spectacular.
Soon we will be packing up to head back to our slightly less tropical paradise in South Florida. I have seen some wildly tropical plants here and will be posting more pictures later this week.
Aloha!
Amelia Grant
A native of Atlanta, Georgia and extraordinarily well seasoned Landscape Architect/Designer/Writer. I began bouncing around South Florida in the late 1980’s selecting and buying plants for Shopping Mall Interiors I had designed.
Eventually my college roommate landed in Hobe Sound and I came to visit and fell in love with the Treasure Coast. My husband was on the verge of retiring from the practice of Architecture so we came down, bought a house near the Indian River and left the big city’s cold and the traffic far behind.
The blog began as an effort to fill what I considered a vacuum in good gardening information for the Treasure Coast. The Shrub Queen name is a nod to a long standing joke, my husband has called me this for years after one too many Architects asked me to “shrub something up”.
