KILAUEA — For nearly 35 years, Kilauea residents have waited eagerly for Nicholas and Ellen Rapozo’s year-long garden project to blossom. Like clockwork in November, a poinsettia hedge on the couple’s property on Kilauea Road becomes nearly a berm of
KILAUEA — For nearly 35 years, Kilauea residents have waited eagerly for Nicholas and Ellen Rapozo’s year-long garden project to blossom.
Like clockwork in November, a poinsettia hedge on the couple’s property on Kilauea Road becomes nearly a berm of bright red flower petals, a local holiday attraction on the North Shore.
Today, the 60-foot hedge that runs along the Rapozo’s driveway stops foot and vehicular traffic on the road, garnering attention from residents and visitors alike.
Tourists stop by and knock on the door of the couple’s home to ask if they can take pictures of the hedge.
“It is the signal for the beginning of Christmas for us and everybody,” said Ellen Rapozo.
One year, she recalled a youth wearing only shorts knocking on her door, wanting to take pictures of the hedge.
“He said he wasn’t cold, that he was from Alaska and that it wasn’t cold here (in Hawai’i during the winter season). He said he wanted to take a picture for a postcard,” she said.
The Rapozos hope the hedge will continue to grow in the future. They are worried a plant disease may kill the hedge by next year. Lumps have formed on the stems, sapping strength and color from some flower petals, Nicholas Rapozo said.
“The plants aren’t doing so well this year, maybe because of the disease,” Rapozo said. He said he has used pesticides to try to kill invading bugs, but that “they keep coming back.”
Rapozo said he had to clear out the entire hedge at one time because of bug infestation, and may have to do the same next year, should the bugs or disease decimate the current hedge, Rapozo said.
Rapozo, who is now 86 years old, planted the first plant slips when he was 45 years old and working for Kilauea Sugar Company. An employee of the company for 35 years, Rapozo ran the company’s irrigation system, and worked as a senior accountant before the sugar company closed in 1972.
He doesn’t recall from whom he got his first cuttings, but he said he wanted to plant the flowers because they were “bright and pretty.”
Rapozo said he put the first slips or cuttings into the ground on his property in 1964, and continued to put cuttings into the ground, and the hedge expanded foot by foot over the years.
Rapozo’s inspiration to create the hedge came during a visit to O’ahu as a youngster in the 1940s.
Rapozo recalled being impressed by a row of low-lying poinsettia flowers placed by a Honolulu Water Department building in the community of Nu’uanu.
Taking care of his hedge has been painstaking work. By hand, Rapozo prunes the stalks nearly to the stumps in April and August, to spur the sprouting of flowers by the winter months.
When Rapozo was younger, he would take a half day to cut back the plant stems.
In recent years, as Rapozo has gotten older, a yardman has taken up the task. But Rapozo said he liked doing the job himself, because “I can prune it the way I like it.”
Friends have recommended growing methods to him that they think will work to ensure his hedge puts out flowers each year, Rapozo said.
A friend put a cover over his plants during the day, on the assumption that the poinsettia plants grew better when exposed to less light.
Rapozo takes a more simple approach. He waters and fertilizes, and “I just cut it in the hopes it comes out in December,” he said.
Winter winds also can cut into the fullness of the hedge, so a windless winter would help the hedge become the fullest it can be, Rapozo said.
Under the best growing conditions, the red flower petals will remain alive until February or March, he said.
His current hedge grew so well that his neighbor decided to put one up himself three years ago, using cuttings Rapozos gave him. Today, a 100-foot hedge runs across the adjoining properties.
Ellen Rapozo said her husband takes the hedge for granted “because he has seen it so long.”
Although the old hedge may succumb to bugs and disease, Ellen Rapozo, a retired state Department of Education employee and worker at Kapa’a High School and mother of three grown children, said she would like to see the hedge survive in the years ahead.
“We want to keep it going. We fertilize it. Maybe we can talk to them, and tell them to hurry up (and put out flowers by the holiday season next year), because people are waiting,” Ellen Rapozo said with a chuckle.
Staff Writer Lester Chang may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or mailto:ilchang@pulitzer.net.
