When to plant bamboo?

JDE_4

Are there any green-fingered MSE-ers out there who know when it's best to plant bamboo? We picked up 6 x half-price bamboo plants, all about 5-6 foot tall and they're currently in pots.

Is it too late to plant them now and have them establish before the winter arrives? If so will they survive the winter in pots? We just don't fancy killing £150 worth of plants by doing the wrong thing!!!

Thanks in advance.

alanobrien

I have 4 six foot specimins in large pots, had them for about 6 years so they are quite hardy.

We did put a couple in the ground and they spread rapidly so you may want to think about putting them in the ground in a container to ensure they dont take over your garden and next doors

[Deleted User]

http://www.americanbamboo.org/GeneralInfoPages/PlantingAndCare.html :beer:

Lord_Gardener

alanobrien wrote:

I have 4 six foot specimins in large pots, had them for about 6 years so they are quite hardy.

We did put a couple in the ground and they spread rapidly so you may want to think about putting them in the ground in a container to ensure they dont take over your garden and next doors

Yes, many varieties spread rapidly - I spent a week last year digging out a plant which had spread to half a clients garden! It was an expensive lesson for them! Put them in a nice ceramic pot!

worriedwife_3

do you know what varieties they are? Maybe they are fargesia jumbo or similar if they were from ba nd q type places? I bought some bamboo from a specialist grower earlier this year( a fargesia, walking stick one i recall) and they gave me this advice:

plant in a container at leats 18"x18". use good quality ciompost (i used a mixture of john innes and horse manure)feed monthly with a lawn feed (not weed and feed) in growing season. They are all relatively hardy and can go down to minus 7 easily but just to be sure I am going to cover my pots with some bubble wrap along with some other plants as well.

Rex_Mundi

alanobrien wrote:

We did put a couple in the ground and they spread rapidly so you may want to think about putting them in the ground in a container to ensure they dont take over your garden and next doors

I'd never plant bamboo straight in the ground. A few years ago, I also spent about a week digging out a patch of bamboo that had grown out of control, the plants were over 10' tall, and spreading everywhere. The root system was so tangled, I broke the fork doing it. Even though I dug the lot out, a year later it was back.

I was given a tip recently to get rid of bamboo (although I've not tried it, so I'm not sure if it works). Turn a hose on the ground around the bamboo. Leave it running for an hour or so. Do this every day for a few weeks. I've been told this will flood the roots and kill the plants off. I really don't know whether this works.

tawnyowls

My OH collects the things, and we've shoved them in any time between the depths of winter and high summer. Some are invasive, but not all. As a general rule, if it's got small leaves it's probably Fargesia or Phyllostachys, which are clump formers and don't tend to spread - they just thicken. If it's got big leaves, it's probably some form of Sasa or Pseudosasa, and it will spread. You can reduce the likelihood of a bamboo spreading by lining the hole with metal or concrete, but if it really wants to spread, it probably will. I can't say it's caused us much grief, but we do keep ours in check by chopping off rhizomes that are misbehaving. Bamboo is a grass, so you can kill it off with weedkiller if you're really desperate (although you might want to save a few canes in a pot first!). I think it unlikely that water round the roots would do much, as many of them originate in monsoon areas.