Best privacy screen for inland Socal

[James B]

Between the 3 what would you say are the best privacy screen for the Inland Empire:

Pinanga Coronata

Ptychosperma Scheferi

Dypsis Lutescens

Looking for 15 gal size, ability to take full sun from 11-330pm in summer and is a fast grower and dense clumper. No need for it to get above 10 feet or so.

I have a Dypsis Lutescens planted as a 15 gal 1/ months ago. Has been somewhat of a slow grower. Continues to split, right now about 9 palms or so in the bunch but none above 5-5.5 feet tall at the moment.

[Palm Tree Jim]

IMO, the first 2 palms will not do well with your afternoon sun. The lutescens has the best shot. 

Also, how cold do you get?

[James B]

46 minutes ago, Palm Tree Jim said:

IMO, the first 2 palms will not do well with your afternoon sun. The lutescens has the best shot. 

Also, how cold do you get?

I'm at the cusp of 9b/10a. The more palms I plant in my back yard the more it is pushing it towards 10a especially in the densest section of my yard. In the past 7 winters the absolute winter low in my yard has been 29-30 degrees. On average the coldest it gets is 32-34 degrees for a few hours maybe 5-7 times each winter.

I have also considered Arenga Engleri as well for the spot in consideration.

[Palm Tree Jim]

Sounds like you are creating some nice canopy in your garden. Both the Pinanga and Ptychosperma will appreciate that if you decide to plant them.

I am growing both of these plants with canopy protection.  The engleri might be a good option as they clump well.

[Tracy]

1 hour ago, Palm Tree Jim said:

The engleri might be a good option as they clump well.

Before I read this was an option, and hearing that you only needed limited height, Arenga engleri was the first thing that popped into my head.  They can get thick and require some thinning of the dead heads post flowering, but they won't keep growing until over your space and leave you with a void of just trunks below.  No mess like you would have with bamboo leaves continually dropping either.  I mention bamboo only because it comes up as a frequent screening option and species can be selected for overall height requirements, but I'm not a huge fan.  I have to clean up all the leaves from my neighbor's bamboo across the street which blow into my yard during wind events.  I digress though....

Arenga engleri will give you the added bonus of being very fragrant once they achieve flowering stage too.

[James B]

32 minutes ago, Tracy said:

Before I read this was an option, and hearing that you only needed limited height, Arenga engleri was the first thing that popped into my head.  They can get thick and require some thinning of the dead heads post flowering, but they won't keep growing until over your space and leave you with a void of just trunks below.  No mess like you would have with bamboo leaves continually dropping either.  I mention bamboo only because it comes up as a frequent screening option and species can be selected for overall height requirements, but I'm not a huge fan.  I have to clean up all the leaves from my neighbor's bamboo across the street which blow into my yard during wind events.  I digress though....

Arenga engleri will give you the added bonus of being very fragrant once they achieve flowering stage too.

What’s been steering me away from Ptychosperma and Arenga is I’ve watched videos today saying their seed is toxic and has crystals which can cut up your skin. Is that accurate? I have a 6 year old and a 1 year old. Never grown either but I do need to ensure there is not a safety hazard to my little ones. 

If so a clumping Dypsis or Pinanga seem to be safer option as the area is in my back yard heavily trafficked by my daughters. 

[Tracy]

1 hour ago, James B said:

What’s been steering me away from Ptychosperma and Arenga is I’ve watched videos today saying their seed is toxic and has crystals which can cut up your skin. Is that accurate? I have a 6 year old and a 1 year old. Never grown either but I do need to ensure there is not a safety hazard to my little ones. 

If so a clumping Dypsis or Pinanga seem to be safer option as the area is in my back yard heavily trafficked by my daughters. 

I am not aware of Arenga seeds being toxic but that doesn't mean they aren't.  As far as anything on the fruit or seeds cutting the skin, I have picked them up, brushed them off a seat wall the fruit sometimes overhangs and never noticed anything that would cut me.  The leaflets are more rigid than most clumping Dypsis if you run into them but nothing like any Phoenix species.  My now adult sons grew up in yards without incidence that had Cycads, Phoenix (reclinata & roebelenii) and Chamerops humilis, but the level of caution is a personal decision.

Perhaps a different clumping Dypsis would be an alternative.  I don't know how Dypsis heteromorpa will perform inland, but it's a striking palm with the orange fuzz, is a prolific clumper and here on the coast, the leaflets stay greener than Dypsis lutescens

[Gonzer]

Engleri has beaucoup loads of oxalate in it's fruit. Very bad juju!

[mnorell]

I think neither Pinanga coronata nor Ptychosperma schefferi would do well in inland SoCal with midday sun. I don't know how P. schefferi does in SoCal, but I would think it to be quite marginal. I lost a young plant in a container last winter in Rancho Mirage, presumably to the cold. Also in my experience it stays relatively small in less-than-perfect surroundings and has a lot of cultural "issues." There is one near our house in the Keys that was strong enough to re-leaf after what Hurricane Irma served up, but it hadn't looked that good before the storm (mostly chlorosis and an overall tatty appearance in the limestone substrate) and it doesn't look that good now. And that's in a tropical climate.

Pinanga coronata loves heat but wants shade (or dappled) anywhere in SoCal away from the immediate coastal fog-belt. I have the 'kuhlii' form in Rancho Mirage and it did just fine through the sizzling summer with single-digit humidity but wants to be in shade after 9-10am or you will get summer sunburn for sure. If you decide to use Pinanga you would probably want to plant them under some sort of quick-growing canopy trees or large shrubs (maybe Acacias) to filter the light; also if I were attempting it I would use Jeff Marcus's 'blunt leaf' form of P. coronata as it seems to grow the fastest and be more reasonable in its demands. I used it in the Keys as a privacy screen and it grew very quickly until all the plants were decimated in the saltwater inundation of Irma in 2017. But that isn't an issue for you thank goodness 

Some of the more robust Chamaedorea (i.e., C. costaricana) or dense, slender-stemmed species such as C. microspadix might fill the bill and can be fairly fast-growing but you may have sunburn issues with some species. You could use Rhapis humilis (see the huge old clumps at the Huntington) but that will be many years to establish as a privacy screen, methinks. Perhaps also Acoelorrhaphe wrightii (Everglades Palm), Arenga engleri or Caryota mitis could be used en masse. The Arenga and Caryota (also some species of Ptychosperma and Chamaedorea) do have the issue with raphides in the fruit that you mention. But one time will teach you never to do it again! I have made the mistake of handling and hand-cleaning the fruit of Caryota and my lesson was (painfully) learned. However, if you educate your children (who will no doubt be significantly older when the plants start fruiting) they should be able to figure it out. I grew up in San Diego and we had Oleander, black widows, rattlers and castor-oil plants, etc. in the vicinity, and my sister and I knew from a young age to avoid them as we were carefully taught about the dangers of each.

It sounds like Dypsis lutescens may be your best suggestion. And I agree with Tracy, there are many other clustering Dypsis to consider as well. I like that D. heteromorpha. There is also D. baronii, D. arenarum, et al.

There are other Ptychosperma options as well. I don't know how it grows in California, but I used P. lineare in the Keys and they proved to be fast and undemanding growers there. And you could probably get away with a densely planted grove of solitary species such as Ptychosperma elegans or P. salomonense.  At least P. salomonense is a very fast grower, I think also in California. The problem with the solitary species is that they would work at first but eventually you would have a lot of trunks and no foliage for your screen, unless you kept planting young plants throughout the hedge.

[Frond-friend42]

Maybe ptychosperma MacArthuri.  Those look nice in tall stands and could be alternated with another species for a nice tropical fence.

[enigma99]

20 hours ago, James B said:

What’s been steering me away from Ptychosperma and Arenga is I’ve watched videos today saying their seed is toxic and has crystals which can cut up your skin. Is that accurate? I have a 6 year old and a 1 year old. Never grown either but I do need to ensure there is not a safety hazard to my little ones.

I got rid of mine for the same reason. They are extremely toxic and don’t want to risk the little ones playing around them when they seed. 

[James B]

On 11/11/2020 at 10:54 AM, Tracy said:

Before I read this was an option, and hearing that you only needed limited height, Arenga engleri was the first thing that popped into my head.  They can get thick and require some thinning of the dead heads post flowering, but they won't keep growing until over your space and leave you with a void of just trunks below.  No mess like you would have with bamboo leaves continually dropping either.  I mention bamboo only because it comes up as a frequent screening option and species can be selected for overall height requirements, but I'm not a huge fan.  I have to clean up all the leaves from my neighbor's bamboo across the street which blow into my yard during wind events.  I digress though....

Arenga engleri will give you the added bonus of being very fragrant once they achieve flowering stage 

 

Id love to put a Dypsis Baroni or the clumping version of Pembana there but I am having a hard time finding 15 gallons of either.

Edited November 12, 2020 by James B

[Tracy]

1 hour ago, James B said:

 

Id love to put a Dypsis Baroni or the clumping version of Pembana there but I am having a hard time finding 15 gallons of either.

I wouldn't do Dypsis pembana as a screen for a couple of reasons.  First even the clumping ones aren't as dense as some other clumping Dypsis species and second they get tall fast, so you would be depending on the trunks for your screen in a few years.  With wider leaflets than some other clumping Dypsis identified, I think the leaflets get more beat up than a narrower leaflet species.  Rancho Cucamonga gets hit pretty hard with Santa Ana's in my experience and you want something that will tolerate your conditions. Dypsis onilahensis non-weeping form would also work.  

[Tracy]

Dypsis onilahensis as an alternative to lutescens

[James B]

1 hour ago, Tracy said:

Dypsis onilahensis as an alternative to lutescens

Nice that looks great!

[Sr. Califas]

The Arenga engleri is exactly what you are looking for. I know they have some toxicity, but not sure how serious the threat and I'm sure it's something that you could take precautions with. You could always cut the seed pods off at any point. If you can get your hands on a heteromorpha, get it in the ground ASAP.  They are much slower in pots. 

[jreich85]

I would agree with the arenga. Our friends down the street have them as a hedge and they look great. They also seemed to be unaffected a couple years ago when it got down to 26 here. I wouldn’t think the seeds would be a problem especially if you get them mature enough where they are out of the reach of kids. I’ve cleaned hundreds of them with no gloves and only had mild itching if I got the crystals further up my forearm; they don’t seem to be nearly as bad as others such as caryota.

[Tracy]

1 hour ago, jreich85 said:

I would agree with the arenga. Our friends down the street have them as a hedge and they look great. They also seemed to be unaffected a couple years ago when it got down to 26 here. I wouldn’t think the seeds would be a problem especially if you get them mature enough where they are out of the reach of kids. I’ve cleaned hundreds of them with no gloves and only had mild itching if I got the crystals further up my forearm; they don’t seem to be nearly as bad as others such as caryota.

The Arenga will flower and create some seeds right at ground level as you can see in the first photo below, even though other inflorescence will emerge higher.  You could just plant something that will act as a barrier so no one will want to get near the seeds too.

[jreich85]

1 hour ago, Tracy said:

The Arenga will flower and create some seeds right at ground level as you can see in the first photo below, even though other inflorescence will emerge higher.  You could just plant something that will act as a barrier so no one will want to get near the seeds too.

I’m not sure how mature the ones are down the street, but their fruits are definitely well off the ground. I don’t recall seeing any at “kid height” and the ones I had picked on numerous occasions were shoulder height or higher on me but then again I suppose their lawn care folks might be good at chopping off any lower ones. Either way, I still don’t think it’s that big of an issue, but that is only my opinion I suppose.

[Palm Tree Jim]

Back some years ago but you can see the structure of the palm as an adult.

 

[ruskinPalms]

Well. I like D. lutescens for privacy screening. They do ok in full sun in Florida 9B. They will burn a little once below freezing. These came through an advective 27F freeze pretty good, quick to recover with no canes lost. The only downfall as with most palms, is all the fruit they drop when they get older. 
 

 

[Tracy]

22 hours ago, jreich85 said:

I’m not sure how mature the ones are down the street, but their fruits are definitely well off the ground. I don’t recall seeing any at “kid height” and the ones I had picked on numerous occasions were shoulder height or higher on me but then again I suppose their lawn care folks might be good at chopping off any lower ones. Either way, I still don’t think it’s that big of an issue, but that is only my opinion I suppose.

Inflorescence emerge at multiple spots both higher up and down low Arenga pinanga as you can see.  While the inflorescence bases are thick and can get very brittle, they can be removed rather easily after flowering but before seed shed.  I do sometimes because I just don't want to have to pick up all the seed shed.  You can see the varied heights.  The low wall behind the plant is right at seat height from the inside of the wall for perspective.

[James B]

3 hours ago, ruskinPalms said:

Well. I like D. lutescens for privacy screening. They do ok in full sun in Florida 9B. They will burn a little once below freezing. These came through an advective 27F freeze pretty good, quick to recover with no canes lost. The only downfall as with most palms, is all the fruit they drop when they get older. 
 

 

I think those are the greenest Dypsis Lutescens I’ve seen. If I could find some that green vs the usual Yellow Id go with it!