Palms around above ground pool

playfordtree

I guess now's not a good time time to ask "what sort of palms should i plant around our new pool."


We want to go for the "tropical look"

Funny how you always want what you don't have.
I bet you guys in Queensland would kill for a english cottage garden.

Seriously though ya got any ideas?
i have already planted some "banana palms" and monsterias, but want to put some other palms in.

We have plenty of room so space isn't a prob.

I quite like bangalows, so something along those lines.

Oh,

and no smartass answers like "pop in half a dozen washingtonias",
ya flaming mongrels.

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Eric Frei

I will give you some very very sound advice pertaining to palms around pools.

1/ Ensure 1m away from concrete pool wall/foundation etc to CLOSEST EDGE OF MATURE TRUNK.

2/ Beware if planting clumping varieties or you may break rule 1 above.

3/ Ensure palms roots have space to grow in opposite direction to pool, not good if opposite direction to pool is brick fence or retaining wall.

4/ Do not plant monocarpic species.

5/ Most palms will grow 15m to 20m tall and all get some sort of berries, select slow growing varieties.

6/ Do not plant above or near pipes, they will break them.

There's a BIG FALACY about palm roots.

Watch this video 10.7mb WMV and 2.05mins

http://www.palmtreeservices.com.au/video/palmroots.wmv

Slow growing palms.

Spindle palm, Kentia Palm, Majestic palm, Triangle palm.

Small palm.

Cascade palm (chamaedorea atrovirens) can take full sun unlike parlour palm (chamaedorea elegans or bamboo palm).

Some alternative foliage stuff to add colour yet keep tropical, crotons, tri-coloured draecena, sacred bamboo (nandina domestic nana), cordylines

Also dont overlook the value of some stunners where pool water overflow wont get them, Agave, Xanthorrhoea (grass trees) and cycads .

Tropical is a blending of both under story and canopy, but the hard part with palms is their height ... bangalows are a shocker, much skinnier than an Alexandra but just as tall.

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playfordtree

Thanks for advice on palms Ekka.

Heres a pic of the pool just after we put it up, we erected it ourselves it was a sh*t of a job, but saved $2,500 on installation costs!
(if anyone wants advice on putting up above ground pools feel free to ask)




Roots shouldn't be a problem, also behind fence is empty paddocks
We plan to concrete around pool to about 1.5m out, then build some sort of "bali hut" at the rear.

This will leave a garden bed for planting about 1.5m wide.

Attached Thumbnails

 

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Eric Frei

Oh, bad news for you.

The bottom of your pool (the liner) will feel like walking on worms in a few years with palms unless you install ROOT BARRIER some 600mm deep the perimeter of your pool.

Trust me on this, damp sand, those palms smell that cool lined sand pit from further than an Ethiopian blow fly to a Tasmanian BBQ.

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Sean Freeman

Eric's right put int he root barrier should't cost too much easy to install with no landscaping there, any good sized nursery should be able to provide a good range of root barriers.

playfordtree

Thanks boys,
what would i do without youse.

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playfordtree

Regarding the root barrier, i forgot that when we put the pool up we laid thick black plastic on the ground first.
Then we put the sand down, then the liner on top.
Also the nearest palm will be 2.5m from pool edge.
Do you still think i will need the barrier?

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newguy18

i'd put it in just to be on the safe side.I'm not sure about palms but as for most any other tree the roots go 3 times farther than the canopy.

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old schooler

Sean Freeman

Amost definate yes, any waterproof membrane laid over the top of the soil grade will every morning create a film of condensation, this cycle of water formation increases the relative moisture content of theupper portion of the soil profile, it is an attractive environment for fine root growth, the spreading of sand to form a level and sharp object free surface also increases the attraction to fine root growth. many of us have seen the disasterous results of paving over weed mat and fine leveled sand in the presence of trees/palms/or even shrubs.

newguy18

I haven't seen any palm damage to paved surfaces but I've seen plenty of oak damage.

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Eric Frei

But the bottom of the pool isn't paved or concrete it's a vinyl liner and the smallest impressions or roots will be felt and seen.

I know this from experience and cutting bus loads of palms down around pools, including many above ground pools.

In one yard the pool was in the middle and the palms along the fenceline some 4m away, the bottom of the pool looked like a road map! When they got rid of the pool I went back to cut the palms down, it was just thick with small roots, not much bigger than a pencil and tons of little hairy ones. Obviously enough air there.

This is normal, dont under estimate palm roots, they travel for a long distance and when people say palms dont have big root systems .... define big? Yeah, you wont see no 8" dia mother roots etc but there's thousands of these little buggers the size of pencils going everywhere, they dont blow over in sand much do they?

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playfordtree

Heres a diagram of the pool base.
I understand what your saying about just having a liner on top of sand and nothing underneath the sand, but i was thinking that the roots wouldn't be able to get thru the black plastic.
Or are they that aggressive that they would bypass the plastic as well?

Attached Files

Pool liner doc.doc (20.0 KB, 143 views)

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Eric Frei

Yeah I know what you mean, how thick is that black plastic and the roots cant get in from the sides can they?

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playfordtree

The black plastic is probably 1.5-2.5mm thick, i cant really remember, i just bought the thickest chit i could get.
There is a small gap between plastic and base of pool.
Also when we laid the sheet down it wasn't one piece, we had to lay a couple of bits to get complete coverage, one peice overlays the other.
So maybe the roots could get in between the two sheets?
I think i might just err on the side of caution and put the barrier in.

(dammit that means i have to dig holes, i hate diggen holes, im a treelopper not a bloody ditchdigger)

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Eric Frei

LOL

It's a bugger to dig up here mate, soil is like concrete.

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Jamie Myers

Cant you drain the pool and glue/weld the overlapped sheets to prevent leakage/root intusion

Eric Frei

Some pics to do some myth busting.

Here's the above ground pool with the palms around it.



And you can see that the soil level is higher than the bottom of the pool ... where yours is same.



And this shows the roots. They're the dirty lines like creases, also note the berries that fell which are ideal size to block the throat of the Kreepy!



Now in this pic we are looking across the pool. Note that the roots stopped about half way.

Remember these roots had to go down a few feet first then along. That means a lot more soil to deal with and a lot less ozygen but they did it no worries and went 2m toward the centre of the pool under all that water and a liner.



Now in this pic we are looking length wise, again note the roots stop their migration. So it's not just a coincidence the liner was creased there from incorrect installation etc ... definately palm roots under all that water from a raised soil origin.



In this pic note that palm roots will grow over as well us under etc paved surfaces ... they dont care and some sand/or even mortar isn't guaranteed to stop them.



Here you can see why the bricks dislodged. also note the matted dense volume of roots. What happens is the soil becomes a matted mess and other plants have a hard time competing. The soil is hard to dig, in fact where you have palms like this you have to cut a hole through the matted soil with axe or sharpened mattock to stick a pot plant in, but the roots do reshoot and compete against other plants usually winning. The more you then water and nurse the new addition the more the palm roots thicken up/shoot and matt.

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shaggs

Some goods pics n infor there Ekka

See this alot with the ol' coco's.

danneva

You won’t want that your swimming pool sitting in the yard by itself, so consider what you’d like to plant and where. Landscaping in the backyard will turn your pool area into paradise. Avoid planting messy trees (pecans, gums, sycamores) or trees with far-reaching, shallow root systems (some oaks, birches, cypress) near your swimming pool,for instance. Instead go with bushy perennials that don’t grow as tall and can be moved if necessary. But if you want palm trees, maybe Areca Palm, Royal Palm or a Traveler Palm (in their fake versions) will do then install some lights under the palm just to add glam and sparkle to your poolside.

Brent Ferris

Ekka, if the palm roots are so tenacious, what root barrier is going to keep them out?

Eric Frei

The typical nylex plastic root barrier will keep them out (see earlier post).

There's a few of us trying to work out how much force a palm root can actually exert, seeing there's no secondary thickening like tree roots.

It's reasonably accepted tree roots can exert around 120psi pressure, maybe up to a maximum 200psi

But palm roots, what we can see is they have no trouble lifting the liner so they can take some pressure.

Lets make some calculations, we have a 3' deep pool, so if we take a 1" square rectangle x 36' high we have 36inches cubic of water.

What does 36 inches cubed of water weigh?

Answer is 1.3 pounds

So that's a mere 1.3psi and the palm roots can lift it.

They will distort a plastic pot but not break it. So any info you have to data would be good.

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