bamboo as a screen....tips please!

[chimchar]

am looking at buying some bamboo to put in big pots to screen us off from our nosey neighbours.

was looking at "Phyllostachys aurea" (copied and pasted...i have no actual idea about gardening at all!!) is that the one to go for? there are so many varieties.

also, have seen some online which seem very reasonable compared to garden centre prices..should i be asking any questions about the plants? be looking out for anything inparticular?

any thoughts/info gratefully received!

Watching! Bamboo is part of my big garden plan too!

lets hope someone knowledgable comes along soon!

Watching here too. I need a small plant that will grow in a season so it doesn't appear that I'm screening off the neighbours. It needs to cannily grow as a screen, as if it was never my intention for it to do so.

Chimchar are you my neighbour? Shall we just put up a f**k off fence?

lost..does your grown up son swear and be nasty to his girlfriend and smoke copious amounts of weed in the garden whilst you're watching eastenders in the kitchen with the door open?!

a 10 foot fuckoff fence would suit me great, but like you, i want it to appear slowly and sneakily!

don't know about the varieties but plant it in a pot , not the ground, or it will take over your garden, the roots sre super invasive.

thanks song...i had been warned of that. have seen some nice BIG pots that i am planning on putting them in.

Bump.

Bamboo in a pot should be fine, but it likes to be damp so you will need to be vigilant about watering. I've just got home from a long holiday and my potted bamboo (probably phyllostachys aurea, but bought from a plant stall so of unconfirmed provenance) is sulking and has shed a lot of leaves. It should perk up after a few long drinks. Black bamboo is also lovely, if you want to go for contrasting colours.

Annuals grown up trellis could also work - you could be growing them to encourage ::ahem:: your children's love of gardening and nothing at all to do with screening off your neighbours.

Eucalyptus grows very quickly, too, and might be better in pots if you don't want a 30 ft giant.

Oooh. Lovely. Thanks. Will look at eucalyptus too then.

Thanks for replying.

Eucalyptus does need to be handled with care, though, unless you want to introduce a colony of koala bears!

You can plant bamboo without it going bonkers, just buy clumping varieties.

I've planted bambusa gracilis and bambusa eutuldoides China Gold, as a screen, and they're 4 metres high in less than a year, but still the same footprint. These were a metre high with four stems each when planted.

I'm in Melbourne, where frosts are minimal, but there will be varieties which will do well in England.

great info...again, thanks for your replies everyone.

If you're considering buying from the internet... After going to lots of garden centres looking for Black Bamboo & ruling them out as they were too expensive I plumped for an Internet company. I think it was £130 for 3 6-8ft pots. They arrived this week & are Very spindly. There's only approx 5-6 thin stems per pot & only 1-2 of them in each pot are 6ft+.

I hope they thicken out fairly quickly. I wish I had bought locally. I could have bought 2 x pots for the same price but the pots were rammed full of stems.

saggybaps lots of water to establish them. They are gross feeders so manure is good. Even lawn food - it's grass, after all, but be VERY careful that it has no weed killers in it. The growers who sold us bamboo in Oz (and it's the only thing they sell so I trust what they say) said be patient. Bamboo looks as if it's doing bugger all for several months. Keep up the watering - very important in the first 6 months or so.

They were so right.

Thanks for the advice echt I'll be planting them up tomorrow (today).

Fargesia nitida is a clump forming bamboo which won't be invasive. It is very graceful and had narrow stems and leaves.

However mine in the front garden, which I grew from a cutting has outgrown me. It has done nicely until this year (it's 8 years old now) when encouraged by all the rain, it has put on three to four foot of growth so it's standing at around ten to eleven foot high now.

So out it comes. I'm hoping a friend will come and dig it out with me then it will be banished to the lower reaches of the garden where we back onto a farm track, I hope it will flourish there.

I got a bit sidetracked then... I meant to say, bamboo will grow very slowly for years, then will double its size every year, year on year.

It needs lots of water - specimens I've seen in pots always suffer early leaf loss because watering alone cannot possibly provide enough nutrients for the growing plant.

I would recommend growing where it can be put in the ground and there is plenty of room.