Okinawa Jubea thread

Hi there,

not to waste your time but when I was very young and my parents and I made a trip to subtropical region in the

early eighties, we went to a botanical garden. Since I for some reason always liked the tropical plant section of our

local zoo, I had my attention radar tuned up a bit at that time when walking around with my parents and the travel group

we were a part of.

However, one plant - a palm - caught my attention because of the translator's description of the plant - palm - we looked

at. He said:"This is a Chilean Elephant Palm". I looked at it and made the "connection" immediately...the trunk! The trunk

looked like an elephant's leg! Of course it does, so it made sense to me right away, I kept in mind and moved on. (eleven

years old at that time)

When we moved down to Okinawa and finally purchased the house and the garden, the first seeds I ordered from rps were -

exactly - seeds of Jubea Chilensis "The Elephant palm"

It was like a dream coming true. Of course I had educated myself in the meantime about what I am dealing with here, but it

didn't matter. After three years of waiting to sprout and a decade in a pot, always checked it liked the holy grail since it was

were all of it started, I finally went to action and "unleashed" it a couple of weeks ago. Soon after the rain season started

with tremendous amounts of water and soaking the garden more than once for weeks - I was kicking myself myself for the

bad timing - but since this fella is now alive for more than ten years and has experienced every possible freak weather in the

meantime, it went through it remarkably well.

Here we go, this may be one of the very few publicly documented Jubea Chilensis planted out in a private garden in Japan.

I would be very happy to learn of any others.

Alright, enough of talking...

I know, it is a strong statement for such a small garden, but why not?

Happy growing, little beauty!

Lars