I live in South Florida and am having a lychee grove put in on an acre of land next to my home. Problem is that we live in a residential neighborhood...and I do not want to get the neighbors upset and many would consider an agricultural grove to be an eyesore. Zoning does allow it, however, and I would like to have the grove if I can find a nice hedge solution to "hide" the grove from the street as much as possible.

I have a nice black wrought-iron fence that runs along the front of my 2 acre property and I am looking to plant something behind this fence to screen/hide the lychee grove.

I have ficus hedges along other parts of my yard and that is too much maintenance.

The grove contractor recommended a bananna tree hedge...but all the bananna trees I've seen have ugly decaying leaves along the trunks most of the time. Besides, if there is a frost (even though I'm in South Florida it does happen), the trees will most likely die and expose the grove and be an eyesore until they grow back.

Any other tree/hedge recommendations to go behind the fence for shielding? Something edible would be nice...but that is not REQUIRED.

Thanks in advance.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the bananas will all ripen at the same time. In my neighborhood (St Petersburg) one might wake up with a 60 pound 'gift' of a stalk of bananas on the doorstep because so many have more bananas than they can possibly eat. It's kind of like the zucchini that can't be given away up north. I don't know about you, but I can't deal with 60 pounds of ripe bananas all at once. And that might be ONE stalk! of course, you can always gift those bananas back to the giver if you get up early enough.

Read here and on the Florida forum, and you will discover soe good options to bananas.