Ken what are ribbons for? Markings like on banana bunches?

Sold!

Tim, can you post some pictures of yours and tell us how tall they are. Ours are as tall, or taller than Mike; which makes them about 6'. I adore this palm and kick myself for not buying another one or two. I visited the Ryukyus when I lived in Japan and never saw a palm there, but back then I was still palm blind.

Lee

great palm for south fl

On 8/24/2013 at 11:04 AM, Butiagrus said:

Hello!

Let's talk about the Satakentia liukiuensis palmtree

Since 10 years, Ken Johson cultivate this species, now it's time to share some pictures about his lyfe-cycle in his farm.

The beggining with a lot of babies in small pots.
http://imageshack.us/a/img692/4082/ig2b.jpg

After one year in pot, they are going directly in the ground with some rocks and red flags to take care of them.
http://imageshack.us/a/img268/7881/wucl.jpg

After 2 years.
http://imageshack.us/a/img818/9201/brw2.jpg

After 4 years.
http://imageshack.us/a/img89/3527/zfup.jpg

After 7 years.
http://imageshack.us/a/img13/6571/ojxu.jpg

Ken Johnson hugging with love his BIG babies
After 10 years.
http://imageshack.us/a/img42/2091/v1e2.jpg

I am SO SAD these pictures in the original post are no longer visible 😭 any chance you can share again please?!

I have two satakentias from ken johnsons farm, planted out in early 2019 with 2-3' trunk. I also have a smaller one I grew from a 4" seedling in 2021 that was planted in early 2025 is now 6-7' overall. They are great palms and the trunks are pretty thick. I will quote ken " ythey are emergent palms so they like shade when young but with size they take the sun well. The trunk at the crownshaft is about 8-9" caliper, definitely more than my archies and all my other crownshafted palms except for the royals. They hate frost with a couple upper leaves burning a couple years ago. They do look a lot more colorful in sunlight after shedding a leaf.

Here is one of mine, they trunks/crownshafts glow in the distance in sun. No sign of inflorescences yet.

closeup of the same palm to see the crownshaft color a week or so after a new leaf was dropped

Easily my prettiest crownshafted palm. I checked the trunk measurements, 8 1/2' clear trunk as of today.

Strikingly beautiful palms, so clean and straight as an arrow. Tom, those trunks are stout and thick. Mine are taller and thinner, but still show the deep purple color, especially on. The lower portion of the crown shaft.

Thanks for the ‘bump’ Andrea.

Tim

17 hours ago, Andrea-in-San-Carlos-CA said:

I am SO SAD these pictures in the original post are no longer visible 😭 any chance you can share again please?!

I thought the same thing. I wish I had seen the original post. On a side note to anyone in the Orlando area - Lukas Nursery in Oviedo had a couple of these in huge containers when we were there in the spring. They had just arrived and had several feet of trunk. To say I was surprised is an understatement. They are generally not cold hardy enough for the area. The timing was bizarre too since we just had the worst cold snap in years. We haven’t been there since but I would assume that they still have them.

I had not seen the original post but when I was down at Kens farm in 2013(?) he had at least a dozen of them with clear trunks taller than I. They were spaced 8' or so, what a sight! They were all producing inflorescences about to pop. The purple color on his were just astounding, notably more color than mine. That day I decided I wanted one but I was not ready to take care of it being out of town at that time. I knew they were not very cold hardy so I put them either under canopy or near the house to try to take advantage of the house generated heat. I asked Ken lots of questions and used that information to site mine 6 years later when I though I had enough canopy/warm spots. I would not plant one out in the open in my yard. The lowest temp they have seen is 31-32F and the frost was at 34 so I knew it was frost burn that crisped those leaves. The frost burn was selective to a couple leaves open to the sky, just one leaf per palm was burnt. These carry a lot of leaves for me, I have counted up to 16 green leaves on a palm and as few as 10. My third little one is 10' from the house and 10' from the spa which can always be turned on if I think it will get too cold. I waited till my other palms grew tall so I would have some of that heat trapping protection near the house. The one that is not pictured is under a big royal. Once a full leaf, crownshaft and all fell on that palm and landed in the crown right near the spear. The palm caught the heavy royal leaf+crownshaft by the petiole near the crownshaft and held it up off the ground. At first I thought it was going to be damaged, but it never showed any, and kept growing. Besides keeping it warm I have kept it wet. It is ~8 feet from a pop up sprinkler and 10' from a hose bib. I never let these go dry.