The Grass is Always Greener: Once crowded with old and large plants, the landscape was slowly growing out of control. However, the removal of several large trees opened up the landscape and increased sun exposure to the yard, which resulted in a lush lawn.

Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

The landscape, deep in verdant Manoa Valley, has deep, rich soil, abundant rain and plenty of sun. Plus, it’s big–stretching out more than 10,000 square feet down a gentle, rolling slope. It’s not surprising that the original owners of the ’30s home decided that their big yard needed some big trees. They planted a mighty monkeypod tree as well as several Royal poincianas, famous for their flaming red blossoms. A pair of coconut palms were installed along the perimeter of the property, standing guard near the street.

Succeeding owners added jacaranda, plumeria, banana trees and areca palms. Eventually, the landscape also featured a hedge of ficus and more monkeypod, which were carefully pruned to keep them manageable. However, more than 70 years later, with the trees from this eclectic collection growing enormous, little else was.

“You often see this in older homes. People plant too many things,” says landscaper Kevin Mulkern. “When they put them into the ground, they’re only two feet tall, but 30 or 40 years later, they are 50 feet tall and 50 feet wide.”

That is exactly what happened to the Manoa property, which Mulkern was tasked with renovating. The monkeypod tree’s wide canopy covered a vast majority of the space, including two of the property’s poinciana trees. The result was limited sunlight for the rest of the space. Smaller trees and plants struggled, while large patches of the home’s expansive lawn died in the darkness.

Branching Out: Without other trees competing for space and sunlight, the landscape’s majestic monkeypod tree has a chance to spread out and stand out.

Using the less-is-more approach, Mulkern had the monkeypod tree trimmed lightly, reducing the canopy, which opened up a large portion of yard to full sunlight. He also convinced the homeowner to remove yet two more poinciana trees (there were a total of four on the property), which were poking through the monkeypod’s branches, as well as a stand of areca palms with enormous root systems and a pair of old and unhealthy plumeria trees. “You have to decide if it is better to have one or two nice trees with a lot of space, or three or four growing into each other,” says Mulkern. “But, in some of cases, there wasn’t much of a decision. We had disease and wood rot in some of the trees, so it was a matter of safety.”
Mulkern also wanted to remove the ancient coconut palms, which sat on the property’s highest point and towered over the home and yard. Reaching more than 50 feet high, the trees couldn’t be viewed by the homeowners, or anyone else for that matter. But the homeowners decided that they would stay.

Big trees weren’t the only things Mulkern removed from the landscape. He also got rid of unruly plantings of shell ginger, which had run amok in the lush, rain-soaked Manoa yard. He also took out decades-old croton bushes, which had overgrown their space. He replaced them with the more manageable heliconia, red ginger plants and day lilies. Where he removed the old areca palms, he put in new ones.

“I know it doesn’t make sense to replace a plant with the same type that you just took out,” says Mulkern. “But, in this case, the palms were very old and the root system was large and extensive to the point that they were growing out of the ground. So it was not only unsightly, it was also causing problems for neighboring plants.”

Mulkern also installed a small collection of fruit trees near the home: Suriname cherry, dessert guava, dragon eye and avocado. He also installed colorful, flowering bushes and groundcovers such as gardenia, azalea and the multihued yesterday/today/tomorrow plant, which provides a graceful backdrop to a small sitting area.

Shady Character: Landscaper Kevin Mulkern created this sitting area located under the monkeypod tree’s protective canopy. It’s a favorite resting spot for the homeowners’ two friendly Labrador Retrievers.

Out front, along the street, the landscaper replaced the ficus and monkeypod hedge with one composed of the similar-looking but slower-growing Suriname cherry tree.

“The homeowners had taken very good care of their hedge and it looked very nice,” says Mulkern. “But monkeypod and ficus are big plants, which want to grow into big trees, so after a while they get very large root systems, which can cause problems.”

With the property’s sun exposure increased significantly, the lawn and the surrounding gardens began to thrive. To help the regrowth along, Mulkern laid bio-degradable erosion-control netting on some of the bare spots along the slope. The netting held down the loose dirt until the grass had a chance to fill in. He also gently reshaped the slope, so that during heavy rains excess water is redirected away from the house and to a catch basin, which he installed. The final step in the lawn renovation was the simplest but maybe the most important one: He mowed the lawn often.

“What the lawn needed more than anything else was to be mowed every two weeks. Cutting it often makes the grass spread out and grow thicker and denser,” says Mulkern. “When you don’t mow often, grass grows tall and it thins out, so after you cut it, you’re left with bare spots and it takes a while to recover.”

Mulkern’s mowing, cutting, pruning and replanting resulted in a new yard with significantly less plant material than the previous one. But the thinned-out, opened-up landscape seems even more lush and looks far more elegant than before.

“Looking back, it was a simple, straightforward project,” says Mulkern. “But it’s often hard for people to imagine having less of something. Once they understand that, things get real simple.”