This swimming pool is temporary. This is a 12' x 39" soft wall. This fall or next spring I am changing it to 15' x 48" metal wall. The corner will have a rock water fall built up it and going into the pool. The surround and railing area of the pool will be covered by large flat stones. It should appear to be inground when finished.

I am hoping my neigbor to the rear will let me plant a row of large Crape Myrtles in the ditch behind the fence for a better looking backdrop instead of seeing the roof of all the houses I will see the tops of these:

Here is a chop of what it might look like:

Thats going to awesome. 8) 8) 8)

Hello Brandon,
I would say in your climate you have lots of options. Do you ask about the hardiest palm because you don't want to offer much protection? If that is the case you could get away with needle palm with no troble and sabal minor in the right spot with proper care. Those two I'm sure you know are more like bushes until they are older though. If you are willing to protect them some try T. Fortunei or giant scrub palmetto. They both will offer a nice look in your mild winters with some protection on your real cold nights.

I would also try some Musa Basjoo's they will offer a nice tropical look around your pool. This would also require minimal protection in TN. Ensete Maurelli is a awsome banana type plant that grows super fast when it's hot. They would either need to be taken in or treated like a annual.

Welcome to the forum!
Bill

Nice palm tree. What type is that and where did you find it? I haven't seen any quite like that in the Carolinas.

Great looking work by the way.

Hello Brandon,
I would say in your climate you have lots of options. Do you ask about the hardiest palm because you don't want to offer much protection? If that is the case you could get away with needle palm with no troble and sabal minor in the right spot with proper care. Those two I'm sure you know are more like bushes until they are older though. If you are willing to protect them some try T. Fortunei or giant scrub palmetto. They both will offer a nice look in your mild winters with some protection on your real cold nights.

I would also try some Musa Basjoo's they will offer a nice tropical look around your pool. This would also require minimal protection in TN. Ensete Maurelli is a awsome banana type plant that grows super fast when it's hot. They would either need to be taken in or treated like a annual.

Welcome to the forum!
Bill

The reason I am asking for the most cold hardy is because I plan to replace the non cold hardy palm on my tree I made. The tall tree is the one I am refering to. It is semi real. The top is real but the trunk is a dead tree. I want to get a palm to put up there that can survive being up there because I am sure it will need to be more cold hardy to survive on top of that tree. It really would not matter if it were more bushy because thats really what it needs to be is more bushy. The small plam to the left of it is a needle palm that I found at my local home dopot. I am going to make one more tall tree so I can put a hammock between them. I will take pics this time of it being put together. I know the small Sago is almost dead. I had it in the house and moved it to a darker room and it turned yellow. I set it out there and it has a little more green on it now. I have made more progress on the yard and I need to snap some more pics.

Nice palm tree. What type is that and where did you find it? I haven't seen any quite like that in the Carolinas.

Great looking work by the way.

See above post 😀

Novel concept. Could you give me more info on what you used for the trunk part and how you set the palm on top of it. Looks great.

Great project, great privacy idea!
Welcome to palm madness!

Barb

The two hardiest palms for your area would be Sabal minor and Rhapidophyllum hystrix. Sabal sp. Birmingham would be the hardiest trunking palm you could grow but it is very slow growing.

That semi-real palm tree is a clever idea. I hope it works out. If it does, I'm sure we'll see a lot of that popping up all over the country. Very innovative!!!!

Well its been a long time since I have been on here. Some of my plans have changed, but I still want palms. Once I get the yard finished I am going to try to build some more concept semi real trees and see what works and what don't.

Here is the progress since last time:

This is a 15' x 48" pool with 1.5hp pump w/ sand filter.

The plan is to be 2 steps down to the pool level from my patio. And then level with the lower patio grade. There is a retaining wall around the rear of the property so drainage is not really an issue since its lower back there than the pool.
I put a drain in on the outside of the pool wall near the skimmer this should take out any water that gets around the pool. I plan to fill with gravel up to near the level of the drain and then put a layer of concrete around the pool wall and in between the reataining wall that is around the pool. this will be graded to take all the water that gets in between the walls out to the drain that runs to the drainage that runs out the back of the yard.

I plan on building a round deck from the pool to 15" out away from the pool wall So that I can change the liner if needed and access all the parts on the pool. I plan to have a plywood floor on the deck covered in backerboard and then slate on top of that.

I just filled in the dirt up to the wall the yard used to start going down right at the end of the patio. Now it has been dug back out.
Here is the plan: