Palm | Kelapa Sawit

As Kentia production increased its capacity in Europe, word of the plant's beauty, durability and popularity reached North America. Miss Katherine O. Sessions, renowned in her time as one of the United States' most elite horticulturists is credited with introducing the Kentia Forsteriana and other new exciting foliage plants into her country in the late 1800's.
Before long shiploads of foliage plants, including Kentia Palms, were arriving into the East Coast ports from British and European greenhouses. Consignments were sold to greenhouse growers in the Northeastern USA for immediate resale or for "growing on" and subsequent resale at a latter date. These shipments may be considered as the start of globalization of foliage plant production.
At this time Californian plants growers were eager to participate in the new business of producing foliage plants. One advantage Californian growers had over their Northeastern counterparts was that they did not have to pay heating costs for growing a product. One such business in California that began growing Kentia Palms was Jacob Dietrich Nursery. However in the 1920's they sold their business to Roy Wilcox and thus began the long line of involvement by the Wilcox family in growing Kentia Palms. The present day company of Keeline and Wilcox was founded in 1946 and so began their operation of shipping their grown Kentias nationwide by train and air. The Wilcox family are the major grower of Kentia Palms in the continental United States.
The two pictures featured in this article were provided to me by Richard Wilcox and I think they are great!