Group palm plantings vs solitary plantings

[Fusca]

While waiting for my car to be worked on I snapped a few pics this morning biking around Harlingen.  First up our native Sabal mexicana.  There's at least a dozen palms in this clump.  Personally I would rather see them spaced out but kinda cool nonetheless.  Quite common to see clumps like this.

Next up, Washingtonia robusta.  These are street planted and not on private property.  These are groups of about 6 palms each in front of 3 houses.

What do y'all prefer?  Group plantings of these palms or solitary plantings?

[Fusca]

This one isn't a group but a single suckering Phoenix reclinata.

 

[Harry’s Palms]

Group plantings can work depending on the yard or placement. I have multiple or group plantings in some places and they seem to grow well , giving a more dense appearance. Other places a single stem looks better. The example of Sabals is amazing but would require a huge amount of space. Harry

[SeanK]

To me, palms with thin trunks look good in groups.

Acoelorapphe yes, Washingtonia no

Veitchia yes, Roystonea no

CIDP and Butia are definite no.

Sabal also no. Some may look OK in offset rows if they're far enough apart.

[Fusca]

14 hours ago, SeanK said:

To me, palms with thin trunks look good in groups.

Acoelorapphe yes, Washingtonia no

Veitchia yes, Roystonea no

CIDP and Butia are definite no.

Sabal also no. Some may look OK in offset rows if they're far enough apart.

Generally I agree with the thought on the thicker trunks.  The Washingtonia that I posted are pretty thin robustas however.  One thing I noticed is that the robustas seem to have the ability to bend and grow some horizontally in order to keep the crowns separate from each other.  The trunks at the ground level are touching each other but the crowns aren't.  Not so much with the Sabals - they just grow mostly vertically and the crowns just blend together.

[jwitt]

I personally kind of like the grouping. 

These palms I think look a bit better grouped.  Maybe better than just a single specimen. 

[Swolte]

Most of my palms are still very small but I definitely do deliberately plant some of them in aesthetic grouping. You can play with contrasting colors and heights (e.g., low growing C. Cerifera with a Washy sticking out of the clump may look nice) but also leaf shapes.  

[SeanK]

16 hours ago, jwitt said:

I personally kind of like the grouping. 

These palms I think look a bit better grouped.  Maybe better than just a single specimen. 

TBH, I think they're too tall for the house. They would look better in front of a tall civic building.

[jwitt]

1 hour ago, SeanK said:

TBH, I think they're too tall for the house. They would look better in front of a tall civic building.

There's a house?

[Fusca]

I agree with Sean, robustas are great for commercial plantings or as street plantings (like my first photo) but in small residential lots filifera or Sabals are a better choice in areas that have few palm choices.  The view outside the windows is just a few bare trunks.  But the view is better for the neighbors!  I do like the filibusta in between two robusta...

[Fusca]

Here's an interesting group of Livistona chinensis surrounding a taller Sabal mexicana.  Too bad that they're all over-trimmed but still look good.  I think they grow about the same speed so they will continue to differ in height for a while.

[Merlyn]

I've planted quite a few doubles and triples, to me it just depends on the crown spacing.  Big palms right next to each other (like the sabal grouping in the first photo) tend to just look like an impenetrable ratty mess.  Of course, if you WANT something to completely block sight and help reduce sound bleedthrough, that probably works really well!  And then there's tightly-planted doubles that push each other apart like Cocos...except they are Butia!

If there weren't so many ferns on there it would look a bit more impressive.  I took that photo while out on a bike ride, and stopped to check out the planting method.  It looks like they were planted at the same time with zero space between trunks.  As they grew they naturally pushed each other away and created a cool arc. 

[Fusca]

On 9/2/2024 at 2:42 PM, Merlyn said:

It looks like they were planted at the same time with zero space between trunks.  As they grew they naturally pushed each other away and created a cool arc. 

Same thing with this residential planting of 4 hybrid Phoenix - all individually planted right next to each other.  It's interesting how some species (typically with thin trunks) curve away from each other easily but thicker trunked species not so much.  Originally I thought this was a clumping Phoenix like reclinata that was trimmed back to 4 trunks but it's not.

[amh]

On 8/13/2024 at 1:44 PM, Fusca said:

While waiting for my car to be worked on I snapped a few pics this morning biking around Harlingen.  First up our native Sabal mexicana.  There's at least a dozen palms in this clump.  Personally I would rather see them spaced out but kinda cool nonetheless.  Quite common to see clumps like this.

Next up, Washingtonia robusta.  These are street planted and not on private property.  These are groups of about 6 palms each in front of 3 houses.

What do y'all prefer?  Group plantings of these palms or solitary plantings?

I like both group and solitary plantings, but I am partial towards group plantings, because I like forests.

The Sabal mexicanas in the first picture are a little thick; I would like to be able to walk between the palms, but I really like the look of a dense palm forest.