QUESTION: What is this amazing plant? It’s at my barbershop. I want to ask them for a cutting! How would you propagate it? — A.W.L. and S.C.L., Kahala
ANSWER: It’s a ki, or ti, plant but I’d never seen this before. Ask your barber if you can have a cutting or two — one for me!
The letter writers later found it at Koolau Farmers, one of our last true garden shops on Oahu. It is called Cordyline Showgirl.
The scientific name of ti leaf is Cordyline terminalis. The name Showgirl is what we call a cultivar name (“cultivar” is short for “cultivated variety”).
Cuttings, or seeds if you can find them, are the best way to grow ti plants. Don’t leave the cuttings soaking in a bucket till they rot and become a breeding habitat for mosquitoes. It’s best to plant ti cuttings in the ground or in a pot a day or two after you make the cutting.
Plants that are easy to root will put out new roots while soaking in water. But they must grow a new set of roots that are adapted to soil, so save yourself some time and save some of the plant’s stored energy by letting it make new roots in its more permanent home.
Other favorite, easy-to-propagate garden plants include hibiscus and gardenia.
We have so many amazing ti varieties in Hawaii. The original green ti, also called ki or lai, is a canoe plant, carried here on the great voyaging canoes of the ancient Polynesians.
There are so many uses for green ti, you can see how akamai it was to pack them for the long voyage, dole out precious water and care for them on the long crossing, then plant and nurture them once they got to Hawaii.
Besides being a pretty, hardy and xeric (water-saving) garden plant, did you know they are a survival tool? A famine food?
Ti have deep, fat, succulent storage roots that are full of edible starch. They can be dug up and steamed in an imu and eaten. Europeans with metal cooking vessels fermented ti roots to craft okolehao.
Ti plants were used to help delineate ahupuaa boundaries, because even if cut and moved clandestinely, the truth will out: The deep survivor roots re-sprouted at the true land boundary.
We also make lei, laulau, puola (bundles), hula skirts and fly chasers from ti leaves, and they are nice in flower arrangements, too.
Hawaiian green ti rarely flowers, but it’s very pretty when it does and you can see how taxonomists place it in the lily family, Liliaceae. The flowers are small and look like tiny lilies. The fruit that follows pollinated ki flowers will have several small black seeds inside.
Squeeze the seeds out of the fruit, right into a pot of pre-moistened potting mix or good-quality soil. Cover with about a quarter-inch of media and gently pat firm. Water daily and watch for tiny seedlings to pop up.
Some will be green, and some will be new and exciting colors and might even have different leaf shapes. Seedlings of colorful ti leaf plants imported from other places are how we can get new and awesome ti plants to easily grow in our gardens.
Heidi Bornhorst is a sustainable landscape consultant specializing in native, xeric and edible gardens. Reach her at heidibornhorst@gmail.com.
