I'm a beginner - HELP with planting bamboo

jemw

Hi All
Me and Hubby have today bought three established bamboo plants from B&Q to plant to give a screening effect in our garden. At present, they are approx 6ft tall already.
First question is, should we water the bamboo this evening before we get ready to plant them in the ground tomorrow?
Secondly, how do we safely remove the plant from the actual pot without damaging the shoots?
Finally, the advisor at B&Q recommended us to plant them approx 2ft apart, is this about right?
Any other advice would also be greatly received!!!

Farway

Water - yes drench them, but given forecast don't worry too much if not possible

Assuming plastic pots, normally by tapping, quite hard, side of post will loosen them, then push down on rim. If all else fails break or cut the pot. I would not worry too much about damaging roots, it is good practice to "roughen" roots when planting to force them to make new roots that go out into surrounding soil

2ft, sounds a bit close to me, check the bamboo name / type, then google for info on spread etc. A lot of bamboos spread like wildfire, if yours is one of these then 2 foot is too close, they will soon fill in any gaps

Whilst checking, see if it is possible to split yours now, so for every plant you get 2, your 3 become 6 tomorrow when you plant

relay

If the compost in the pots is already damp then you wont need to water them tonight before planting them. 2 Feet apart sounds about right, bare in mind Bamboo travel by root so they will probably move toward each other anyway in time.

Zazen999

Hi
You really need to check out which bamboo you have well before you plant it in a garden -seriously.
Some propagate by root and some by shoot. If it is the shooting type, then you'd be pretty much ok - but if it throws out roots it can take over and spread. The best thing to do in this instance is to keep it in a very large pot - unless you want it to take over.

10 minutes of research on t'internet can save hours of digging out in the future.

jemw

It's Phyllostachys Aurea, which we looked into with it being a clumping variety rather than a running variety, which is easier to control as it shouldn't jump next door!!

Will look into trying to split them before planting tomorrow!!

Thanks guys

alanobrien

jemw wrote: »

It's Phyllostachys Aurea, which we looked into with it being a clumping variety rather than a running variety, which is easier to control as it shouldn't jump next door!!

Dont you believe it, our next door neighbour has a constant supply of bamboo from our Aurea. Clumping it may be but ours has spread up to 5 foot from where it was originally planted

Davesnave

My neighbour has a pretty large bamboo the other side of our fence. It comes up all over his lawn, but has not appeared in our garden due to the fact that I put a 12" - !8" (45cm) concrete barrier under the fence to control his bindweed! Maybe paving slabs buried vertcally would have a similar effect, but they'd have gaps where they meet each other.

jemw

Hi All

Thanks for your replies

We have some spare paving slabs which I will try to sink into the ground around our neighbours fence.

Spoke to neighbour again today, and she did say she wouldn't actually mind if it started sprouting in her garden!!