Hualalai Resort, an 865-acre residential community on the north Kona-Kohala Coast, just celebrated its ninth anniversary in September. In addition to its residential communities, Hualalai Resort features two golf courses, a sports club and spa, cultural center, and hotel (Four Seasons Resort Hualalai). Roughly two-thirds of the resort's 865 acres has been developed, with the remainder expected to be complete in the next five to six years.Hualalai Resort is sited on an old lava flow, presenting unique challenges to tropical landscape development and maintenance. Whatever topsoil is needed has to be imported, as there is essentially none on site. Erin Lee, Director of Resort Landscaping at the Hualalai Resort since 2002, oversees a staff of about 75 employees that maintain all of the resort's lawns, common grounds, shrubs and planters. Her staff is also contracted to maintain the landscapes of the hotel and private residential areas. Landscape Theme The theme at Hualalai is a subtle, muted and elegant tropical landscape, featuring an assortment of plant material including many indigenous species. Fragrant white flowers of Singapore Plumeria and brilliant hibiscus bordering crisp green Bermuda grass lawns create an inviting and visually pleasing environment. Many of the native ground covers and commonly used plant materials are propagated on-site in a nursery overseen by Lee's staff. Composting Program About eight years ago, Hualalai Resort began a program to recycle its own green waste, as it was the responsible thing to do in keeping with their commitment to care for the land, not to mention the potential value in all that organic material. All of the resort's grass clippings, shrub and tree trimmings, etc. are taken to an on site composting facility to be reborn into compost. The compost operation includes a chipper to process branches and larger woody materials, a front-end loader to mix materials and turn the compost piles, and a screener to produce a uniform product. The piles, averaging 10 feet tall x 20 feet wide by 300 feet long, are irrigated to maintain adequate moisture during the composting process, which takes about two to three months from start to finish. The finished compost is then taken back to the resort, where it is used in planters, beds, nursery stock, and to top-dress lawns. In the future, the resort is considering other materials such as office paper and food waste to incorporate into the composting operation. At present, scrap food from the kitchen goes to local hog farmers. The resort uses all of the compost it can make, and even has requests from outside contractors for the product! Compost Tea Ms. Lee first heard about compost tea from an article she read in the journal Biocycle. Having observed beneficial results from the use of compost in their operations, the department decided to extrapolate the potential of compost tea and purchased a 25-gallon compost tea brewer in 2000 from Michael Alms of Growing Solutions. Little by little, the landscape crew began to incorporate compost tea into their routines. Initially, it was used on plants infested with root-feeding nematodes such as pink hibiscus, using a combination of soil drench, root/basal application and some foliar application. Visible results were observed in a very short period of time after compost tea was applied. Once her staff heard that it worked on hibiscus, they began trying it on many other plants with similar results. Thus began an internal race over who got the compost tea, so Lee decided to purchase a 100-gallon machine from Growing Solutions. Both machines now run essentially non-stop, and crews are given their respective allotment. Compost tea is used on essentially all maintained areas of the resort. It is used regularly on 28 custom estate homes and three large association complexes (condominiums) with expansive common areas. It is also used on the hotel grounds (about 35 acres). The compost tea is usually diluted 1:1 (tea to water), but sometimes diluted slightly more on new transplants. (Note: the resort installed a whole-system reverse osmosis water treatment unit recently because of high salts; this is used in all residential and hotel irrigation, compost tea production and dilution, as well as to water the compost pile.) The compost tea is applied to large areas with a 100-tank sprayer mounted on a Toro Workman with a spray wand. Other methods of application include 27-gallon sprayers (foliar and drench application), backpack sprayers, as well as buckets and watering cans. Results/Conclusions When asked if she had encountered any problems with incorporating compost tea into her landscape maintenance program, Lee firmly stated "no problems whatsoever." When asked about effects of the compost tea, Lee says that visible results tell the story. "You'd have to be blind not to see it", she jokes. When comparing the current situation with what existed before incorporating compost and compost tea into her program, Lee sees a huge difference in overall quality. The resort no longer purchases orthene, diazinon, or malathion. She believes that compost and compost tea helped eliminate the need for these chemicals by increasing the health and vigor of plants. Therefore, fertilizer and pesticide expenses have gone way down. If there is a disease outbreak, target-specific chemicals are used judiciously. And of course there is the considerable cost avoidance of using their own green waste to make rich compost to use on-site vs. purchasing soil amendments from the outside. Ms. Lee is always looking for ways to make her program better and more sustainable in the future. She has been talking with an extension agent about the possibility of adding vermicomposting (composting with worms) to her organic materials processing operation. She also supports Hualalai Resort's goal of serving as a model of sustainability for other properties with similar goals.
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