Someone certainly loved palms and went all out with a hedge of engleri.

A local suburban house in my hometown, they went for privacy and certainly got it with this lot of palms.

So engleri will make a great hedge over time. They even threw in a Bismarckia for good measure.

But how many are there! We can only dream of a house like this here, almost all the families live in apartments in a condominium, I am one of the lucky few to have a garden here

That looks great!

2 hours ago, gyuseppe said:

But how many are there! We can only dream of a house like this here, almost all the families live in apartments in a condominium, I am one of the lucky few to have a garden here

Not sure how many are planted, I might knock on there door one day and ask what is the story behind the palms. There were only palms in the garden nothing else except for palms.

There are some incredible properties with houses in my area!

40 minutes ago, Jim in Los Altos said:

That looks great!

They make a great hedge and those pictures show that!

I can see why someone would like that privacy hedge . Not a fast way to get one but pretty cool . I am surprised you haven’t introduced yourself . Harry

I would have like to have a few engleri but I didnt see them at the palm nurseries much when I was planting out, and a single engleri (mature) doesnt give much privacy down low. Clearly a properly spaced hedge like this one gives plenty of privacy. I saw these at tampa zoo and the more mature ones were notably taller than 12', which I dont want in a hedge.. I settled on silver saw palmettos which do give great privacy but they have their own issues like growing sideways into the neighbors yard. I have one silver saw in full sun that went almost 20' wide in 15 years from a 1 gallon. I have a couple Chrasalidocarpus lutecens clumps, they dont do well down low over time, they succor too much so bunching them can be a maintenance curse. I have to remove half a dozen lutecens trunks every couple years, they are prolific succoring palms That engleri hedge looks great, I just know I could not do the trimming in our heat with so many palms as the above hedge has. I would like to pick up a few engleri for spots now that I have the part shade positions.

9 hours ago, Harry’s Palms said:

I can see why someone would like that privacy hedge . Not a fast way to get one but pretty cool . I am surprised you haven’t introduced yourself . Harry

I was going to introduce myself and find out the story behind obviously another palm nut. But a great looking hedge if i do say so!

Richard

6 hours ago, sonoranfans said:

I would have like to have a few engleri but I didnt see them at the palm nurseries much when I was planting out, and a single engleri (mature) doesnt give much privacy down low. Clearly a properly spaced hedge like this one gives plenty of privacy. I saw these at tampa zoo and the more mature ones were notably taller than 12', which I dont want in a hedge.. I settled on silver saw palmettos which do give great privacy but they have their own issues like growing sideways into the neighbors yard. I have one silver saw in full sun that went almost 20' wide in 15 years from a 1 gallon. I have a couple Chrasalidocarpus lutecens clumps, they dont do well down low over time, they succor too much so bunching them can be a maintenance curse. I have to remove half a dozen lutecens trunks every couple years, they are prolific succoring palms That engleri hedge looks great, I just know I could not do the trimming in our heat with so many palms as the above hedge has. I would like to pick up a few engleri for spots now that I have the part shade positions.

The great thing about the engleri is the cold tolerance making them a good choice for those colder climates. Beating the lutescens hands down for cool tolerance and maintenance, even when the stems die you hardly notice them.

If you were prepared to do a bit of height adjustments they would take removal of stems that are to tall well.

They are still quite rare in my area, the landscaper who done the work for that hedge knew what he was after (or the home owner) I have seen two other gardens in town with exotic similar palms, so there must have been a landscaping company some years ago that was into palms. Or just good knowledgeable gardening people. But most certainly a good example of the use of palms for landscaping and in this case the engleri!

One disadvantage of Engleri is that individual stems die after flowering. I have planted a similar hedge, which might in a few years be a good block up to maybe 6-12 feet. But I'm not relying on it alone as a sight/sound block. That's because a pretty big cllump decided to flower on all the tall stems...all at once. So now the clump is about 3 feet tall and may take a couple of years to get back to 8+ feet tall. They are very cold hardy though, only taking some minor leaf burn at 22.5F this last winter.

6 hours ago, Merlyn said:

One disadvantage of Engleri is that individual stems die after flowering. I have planted a similar hedge, which might in a few years be a good block up to maybe 6-12 feet. But I'm not relying on it alone as a sight/sound block. That's because a pretty big cllump decided to flower on all the tall stems...all at once. So now the clump is about 3 feet tall and may take a couple of years to get back to 8+ feet tall. They are very cold hardy though, only taking some minor leaf burn at 22.5F this last winter.

That would be a disadvantage, especially if all in one individual palm flowered at once, creating unwanted maintenance. And to a non Palm enthusiast it’s certainly a disadvantage, yet for a palm nut iam sure they would handle the situation a little differently, yet still unwanted maintenance we could all do without. Another disadvantage is the time required to grow such a hedge, when most gardeners want a hedge asap, after all that’s what the hedge was wanted for in the first place, privacy!

Another factor to be aware of with Arenga Engleri is the fruit mesocarp has a high oxalic acid content. Always wear gloves when handling fruits or trimming as oxalic acid is a severe skin and eye irritant. It can give some painful contact burns. Most obviously do not swallow fruit. So when they are fruiting, handle with care, eye protection and gloves. I would not want to dispose of the fruit from dozens of palms and it goes without saying keep the kids away from them when fruiting.

On 7/1/2026 at 1:23 AM, sonoranfans said:

Another factor to be aware of with Arenga Engleri is the fruit mesocarp has a high oxalic acid content. Always wear gloves when handling fruits or trimming as oxalic acid is a severe skin and eye irritant. It can give some painful contact burns. Most obviously do not swallow fruit. So when they are fruiting, handle with care, eye protection and gloves. I would not want to dispose of the fruit from dozens of palms and it goes without saying keep the kids away from them when fruiting.

To my astonishment fruits are not always at all or to similar degree caustic. Dunno the reasons but it is so. On the other hand I had once cleaned seeds of Wallichia disticha wearing latex gloves and nevertheless crystalls penetrated the latex. The itchiness on my hands was unbearable, even a certain pharmaceutical skin ointment had not helped, only betamethasone stopped the suffering.