Hi back... saw this post...
I live in South Florida. We have several palms in our yard. Back when we bought the house, we had an issue with the landscaping. The previous owner had planted fruit tree seeds and palm seedlings 1 to 2' away from the house. That was fine for 15 years, but by the time we got the house... the palms (sago, cabbage, areca, royal, etc.) had matured. The palm trunks and branches were in some cases rubbing on the siding/frame of the house. Also carpenter ants had made nests in the trees and then traveled up the trunk, onto the long fronds and onto our wood frame 2nd story! (the trees made a bridge up to the house they were so close).
We had to pay a friend of ours to come pull them out and replant them out in the back "10-40" yard. Two of them were so infested with ants and termites that we cut them up and stacked them in the swale for the town to trash.
That's our story.
Based on my experiences with that... I'd suggest that you don't plant trees (any trees/palms) a mere foot away from your house. Of course, I don't know how much further out you can go - since you said that you didn't have a whole lot of room.
There are a lot of quick and dirty landscape companies that do the landscaping for the many 'up overnight' Devosta, zero lot line homes. I've noticed that they plant trees right up next to the houses in many cases. I would bet that since the houses will usually get flipped... both the new owners and/or the landscapers really don't think (possibly don't care) about what the trees will do in 10 to 15 years.
Just some thoughts...
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