View Single Post
  #5   Report Post  
Old 27-04-2006, 03:39 PM
echinosum echinosum is offline
Registered User
 
First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Feb 2006
Location: Chalfont St Giles
Posts: 1,340
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travis M.
"HumanJHawkins" wrote in message
ups.com
newgardeners wrote:
Hi, we have just been given some bamboo, the picture below
shows
them in the garden.

[image:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...um/bamboo.jpg]

q1) Can anyone tell from the picture what type they are?

q2) Are they too close to the fence?

q3) Will they grow quickly to above/fence height


First question for you... Are both plants of the same variety?
If
you don't know for sure look at them real closely to check this
first.

We will need a few more close-up pics... One of the whole plant
but
up close, and a couple real close-ups of the branches, leaves,
etc.
Characteristics that help identify bamboo a

- Size and shape of leaves
- Color of culms and leaves
- Number of branches at each node

Also, it helps to see the new culms as they shoot... Some
bamboos
look identical except for their new shoots. It is likely that
there
is a new shoot or two on these plants at this time of year, so
shoot a photo of that too if you can.

Without this additional info, any answers will be unreliable at
best.


.........and sometimes the only way to tell is by the flowers.

--

Travis in Shoreline (just North of Seattle) Washington
USDA Zone 8
Sunset Zone 5
Travis is trying to give you more than you need.

I can tell from your URL and your garden that you are in England. Almost certainly your donor didn't buy them from "really-obscure-bamboos-R-us", (otherwise they would tell you precisely what you have) and almost certainly didn't buy a bamboo that would die in an English garden. There are only about 10 genuses of bamboo commonly sold in Britain, indeed unless you go to a specialist there are barely 10 species commonly sold. So even if we don't get the precise species and variety, we will probably identify it well enough for your needs. But we do need a close-up of the culms to do that. In fact even without a close-up, I would punt a guess that at least one of your bamboos is Pseudosasa japonica, the most commonly grown bamboo in Britain.

I can tell you one thing straightaway, you almost certainly have running bamboo. Bamboos come into two basic kinds - clumpers and runners. There are only two genuses of true clumping bamboos commonly grown in Britain, Fargesia and Thamnocalamus, (and "commonly" is stretching it for the second named) and even from a distance it seems unlikely that yours are one of those. So you have runners. Admittedly most runners only run fairly slowly in England (so most English sellers describe all the bamboo that they sell as "clumping" even when it isn't). But nonetheless before long your bamboo will probably be under the fence, maybe not this year, but perhaps next year or the following, whether you put it hard against the fence or at the front of the bed. So unless nextdoor's garden is solid concrete, you should consider whether your neighbour will mind having bamboo growing in their garden. If not, you should think about installing a proper underground barrier to prevent it spreading that way, and that will be easiest to do now. You might also want to enclose it fully with a barrier, so it isn't popping up where the slate scree is.