Palms or bamboo for noise screen

[Dmk113]

Hello,

im new to south Florida and new to palms. Looking to screen/dampen road noise in back of our house. The back yard is ~80’ long with an ~7’ high concrete wall that I would like to screen out as well. Currently there are a few palms and live oaks that we inherited, will most likely cut down the oaks once the screen matures. I have been doing some research and have found Areca or fishtail palms could provide the thickness to provide some sound reduction and am leaning this way. I know very little about bamboo but was thinking this could be an option as well and also viburnum. 
 

I am hoping you guys could steer me in the right direction? The focus is sound reduction but also want something aesthetically pleasing. 
 

Thanks in advance! 

[Dmk113]

Here is the wall I’m trying to screen. Thanks. 

[JLM]

Welcome to Palmtalk! I say mix it all up, just make sure these palms will reach the specific height needed, the bamboo will grow and likely wont be a problem for you. As you said i also know nothing about bamboo besides the wild bamboo that grows in my backyard. The oaks are perfect size to be cut now without very much worry of damaging your wall. What kind of oak is it, it kinda looks like live oak. If thats the case you for sure dont want these unless you want a huge tree and a huge mess! Most of the live oaks up this way failed during straight line winds and an F0 tornado not long ago because of rot. Mind you these trees are hundreds of years old but still.

[Kaname-kun]

Bamboo will drop tons of leaves year round. They are incredibly messy.  The Areca and Caryota will quickly create a good, dense noise screen. If you drive around FL neighborhoods you'll see many examples to help you decide which works for you. . . . People here also use Podocarpus for this purpose, but the palms will be better at noise reduction.

[Jerry@TreeZoo]

If you took a decibel meter and measured the noise level, I doubt that anything you plant would make much difference.  One screen works as well as another.

 

I think the difference is made in the human mind because the screening plants add interest, distracting you from the noise.  The rustling of the leaves, the "whoosh" of the wind blowing through the screen, the groaning of the trunks rubbing against each-other  (especially in bamboo, it sounds like you are on a sailing ship) work together to disguise the noise.

 

BTW, if you truly acquire stage 4 Palm-Bug, you will appreciate the shade the live oaks provide as another opportunity for smaller, shade loving palms.

[sonoranfans]

I think small clumping bamboo and shrubs will do a better job of noise screening down low than caryota mitis or dypsis lutecens("areca" clumper).  Noise up high can be damped with palms.  If you have (solid) fencing already that would cover noise down low, though fences reflect noise that makes its way into the yard in effect amplifying it.   The fence along my back yard border reflects lots of sound from the street through open path channels.  This really became more noisy after my smaller palms near that fence grew tall leaving plenty of fence for the sound to bounce off of. I had to remove a caryota mitis that overgrew too close to the house.  That mitis was 25' overall in 7 years from a 3 gallon size!  It had ~10  5-9" thick trunks that didnt support many leaves down low but it had a huge crown up above 8-10' to 25'.   I chose serenoa repens blue and chinese dwarf bamboo(trim nicely to 7-8' once a year) down low for privacy and noise block.  I do have (2) d. lutecens clumps which I trim to keep them compact as they can grow to 20' plus overall.  Above 8' over there are lots of other palms of many species.  I have a larger bambusa chungii barbelatta at 25' OA and its not the leaves but the sheathes that come off the culms that creat the most work.  the leaves shed too but they can blow away in the wind, but not the sheathes.  I mow them with my electric bagging mower to pick them up, but they do shed a lot.  My chinese dwarf bamboo are much smaller and seem to not shed much at all.  BEcareful if you get a bamboo, they can get 35-55' overall, and only clumping bamboo will not be invasive.  I do like my serenoa repens blue, take 5 years to get to size but they do an effective job and they keep plenty of leaf mass for sound block down low.

[Tracy]

13 minutes ago, sonoranfans said:

BEcareful if you get a bamboo, they can get 35-55' overall, and only clumping bamboo will not be invasive.

Can't emphasize that enough which is why I had to re-post that portion of your advice regarding the bamboo and limiting it to clumping bamboos.

On the palm side, there are plenty of clumping palms that you can use to mix up textures and colors rather than simply using Dypsis lutescens (aka Areca palm).  Other species of clumping Dypsis like Dypsis onilahensis (white crownshaft and 2 different forms, one with "weeping" fronds and the other more upright), Dypsis heteromorpha (colorful brown fuzz on the crownshafts and rachis), Dypsis utilis, Dypsis fibrosa or Dypsis crinita which have "hairy" trunks and colorful red leaves when they open.  A palm that will have a limited height and fragrant flowers when they bloom which can be mixed in as well is Arenga engleri.   You can also mix in some smaller solitary "understory" palms with some taller growing species rather than doing all clumping palms along the wall.

Rather than post all these, you can do a search on this website and get more information on each of the palms I suggested.  I will close with the advice I opened with:  If you do elect to use any bamboo, know the species and how it will grow and make sure it is a clumping variety. 

[Dmk113]

Thanks so much for the feedback, everyone. Going to be doing some more research before we make up our minds. 

[Merlyn]

This is something I researched a lot, because the noise level at my house has jumped substantially over the past ~20 years.  There used to be a thick water oak forest to the East of the next neighborhood, and it did a great job of blocking highway and road noise from that side.  Now it's gone and replaced with apartment buildings, the background noise went from the low 40s dBA up to the mid 50s.  That's the difference between "barely noticeable" and "noisy and you have to speak up to talk to someone next to you."  2 years ago I started noise isolation, here's what I found:

• Willow is supposedly the best, with 30dBA drop for a 6 meter thickness.  It's not practical in my area, and doesn't make an easy hedge.  It might be an option for your layout.
• Viburnum hedges are the best easy hedgeline absorbers, bar none.  Research showed a drop of 15dBA for a 6 meter thickness.  The thick, waxy leaves are good absorbers and scatterers of sound.  They grow dense if you trim them back appropriately, they tolerate full sun and only thin out a bit in dense shade in FL.  They don't defoliate or die until (I think) the low 20s.  You can cut them almost to the ground and they'll grow back fast.
• Bamboo is 2nd best, at a measured 9.2dBA for 6 meter thickness.  That's an average, but it does really well at high frequencies, 10-30dBA.  That means if your major issue is high frequency tire noise or "hiss" from air noise.  If you problem is rumble from trucks it won't do much.  In my experiments at a local bamboo nursery, the thin leaf types like Bambusa Textilis and Bambusa Multiplex did absolutely nothing to noise.  Bare culms also did nothing to absorb noise, so don't pick ones that grow to 60' with the bottom 20' bare of branches.  The ones with bigger, waxier, thicker leaves like Dendrocalamus Minor Amoenus, Bambusa Vulgaris Wamin, Bambusa Lako all had noticeable sound reduction.  Super-dense ones like Asian Lemon (Bambusa Eutuldoides Viridi-Vittata) and Seabreeze (Bambusa Maligensis) did really well too. 
• Palms can work too, but only ones with either super-dense foliage or thicker, waxier leaves.  Areca (Dypsis Lutescens) does nothing in my yard.  SPL measurements on either side of a 3' thick clump show no SPL reduction.  Fishtail (Caryota Mitis) has 2-3dBA reduction on a 5' thick clump.  I think that's because the large leaves are thicker and scatter sound better than the wispy Dypsis leaves.  Most of the ~145 palms I have in the ground don't make a noticeable reduction in noise.
• Bananas do great in clusters, if they have big, thick leaves.  Ice Cream bananas do really well, as do Dwarf Cavendish types.  An Ice Cream will rapidly offset and form a dense 20' tall cluster really fast.  I don't have a dBA measurement on those, but I'd estimate 3-5dBA.  I'm growing a hedgeline of these on the East side and will be able to measure a difference pretty soon.
• Philodendron Selloum (Bipisdifnndaafudum or whatever the new name is) does really will in a thick clump, but only in my yard because I have a 20' wide clump.  I'm pretty sure Viburnum does a better job per thickness.  So mine at 20' thick is good for about 6dBA, but a 3' thick Viburnum hedge might do the same reduction.

Hopefully that helps with your noise reduction.  The key was thick, waxy leaves and lots of them.  So while a tree like a Magnolia has super thick waxy leaves, it isn't very dense.  And Dypsis Lutescens can be super dense, but very thin and wispy leaves. 

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ENVIRonment/noise/noise_compatible_planning/federal_approach/audible_landscape/al04.cfm

https://dgmr.nl/app/uploads/files/InterNoise 2016 000608 Bamboo plants as a noise barrier to reduce road traffic noise.pdf

[Dmk113]

This is very helpful. Thanks for the information!

[DoomsDave]

If you use Caryota, use mitis. Don't use urens or the single trunkers. They'll get old and die and fall over, plus provide a lot less noise reduction.

For the love of God, or whoever, DON'T plant willows. Huns? Thugs? Home-invasion gangsters? That's them.