Giant Bamboo??

divadee

right numerous questions.

I want a fast growing, very tall growing bamboo plants for my back garden.

As far as I have been told by the council these are exempt from any of the new hedge height laws etc... so height is not a problem.

They will not be blocking anyones light at the present time, but if my horrible neighbour gets his planning permission on appeal then they will be shielding us from the monestrsity at the end of our garden!!

Can anyone help with different species etc.. we need some that are easy to care for, we havent got that a green fingers in this house!!, disese resistant etc... and not costing the earth!!

Can anyone help, also we need to fill in about 36 foot of length along our back fence can anyone help?

Woby_Tide

hello again,

one thing to bear in mind with bamboo is the way the roots work, they are very aggressive and can go underground great distances quickly so with some species you need to build trenches and barriers around them to contain them.

(we looked into them as potential screening for the railway fas the fast growing low maintenance option, but we're still looking after readiing that about some of the species.....maybe some more green fingered sorts can help us out too at the same time;)

divadee

Woby_Tide wrote: »

hello again,

one thing to bear in mind with bamboo is the way the roots work, they are very aggressive and can go underground great distances quickly so with some species you need to build trenches and barriers around them to contain them.

(we looked into them as potential screening for the railway fas the fast growing low maintenance option, but we're still looking after readiing that about some of the species.....maybe some more green fingered sorts can help us out too at the same time;)

if you get the clumping variety that helps with the roots also you can get root barrier to stop them becoming to rampant have a look here

hopefully some experts will be along soon to help.

alanobrien

I pulled out about 20 metres of 14ft high Leyllandii hedge this year that was taking up a third of the width of the garden. I ended up replacing about half of it with bamboo to hide a school. I used Phyllostachys Aurea planted in large trugs sunk into the ground to (hopefully) reduce the root wandering. Its easy to look after and if the last 6 months is anything to go by it grows like the clappers if you feed and water it regularly.

I got mine delivered from here;
http://www.seagravenurseries.co.uk/products.asp?d=6

They do various sizes, costs are competitive and delivery to me was next day. Its also worth searching ebay as some nurseries sell excess stock on there.

paddy's_mum

Unfortunately, most bamboos are both very expensive and highly aggressive. The clump forming varieties are usually slower growing and so take longer to fill in an obnoxious view. You may be lucky to find someone nearby who is thinning their barrier but ask yourself why they need to thin them!

It can sometimes cost you more to install some sort of inpenetrable barrier (perhaps a concrete lined trench) than it does to buy the original plants.

Might you be wiser to think about installing something like a pergola or heavy duty trellis type fence across the width of the garden and grow less thuggish plants up it to provide the same degree of privacy eventually?

There was a thread about this not long ago. Maybe try a forum search - I'm sure the key word was pergola. Hope that helps.

ukjoel

Hi,

I have some black bamboo which I planted a couple of years ago.
At the time there were two plants with 4 shoots each at a foot or two high.

There is a guy on ebay selling them at 2 ft (same size I got mine) he is claiming they will hit 1.2 metres in 2008 and 2 metres in 2009. They could reach 4-6 metres.

If your that keen then I was going to give mine a trim so if you want to come and help yourself to a few shoots with roots that would give you two metre plants inside a couple of years then your welcome. Otherwise you can buy 3-4ft plants for a tenner on ebay.
I am based near Southampton.
Looking at the pics from the link below I think one of my other types may be Aurea. This was planted about 3 years ago and is now approaching 4 metres but its not as bushy as the nigra so you may want to put in a mix of the two.

Cheers,
J

gavinp

How tall do you need the bamboo to be ?

For VERY hardy varieties, the general consensus seems to be to use Pseudosasa Japonica (Arrow Bamboo) for circa 4m height or if you need something bigger Phyllostachys Bisettii (David Bissett Bamboo) for 7m approx high.

http://www.junglegiants.co.uk/acatalog/Pseudosasa_japonica.html
http://www.junglegiants.co.uk/acatalog/Phyllostachys_bissettii.html

Both of these varieties are VERY tough and can tolerate windy sites and/or coastal conditions.

You can buy root barriers but I have heard a tip is to use thick weed control fabric lining the bottom of an over-sized hole you plant the bamboo in will have a similar effect although we have ten different types of bamboo - all of ours are in large planters.

Prices do vary a lot between suppliers - I have bought a couple of plants from the Duchy of Cornwall nursery and also a couple from Ebay:

http://www.duchyofcornwallnursery.co.uk/plantshop_list.asp?ptid=10

Thanks

Gavin