"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
"Chookie" wrote in message
"jones" wrote:

Chookie, I note that in this post and a later one you say that 'Nandina
domestica' is not weedy or aggressive.

I'd have to disagree strongly with that based on personal experience. It
is
a garden thug and once established spreads strongly and it will certainly
spread under the fence into the next door neighbour's place. I've found
it
can't be killed with anything that I've yet tried on it. It loved
glyphosate! but I couldn't give either of the clumps as strong or as
thorough a dose as I'd like to have as they are growing near other plants.
In one case it's growing up and around a very pretty mounding small piney
thing (which normally I hate, but this one looks like Mt Fuji). Whenb I
hit
the Nandina with the glyphosate, I covered the piney thing but event hen I
nearly lost it and the Nandina just powered on. I am reduced to cutting
these things off at the base monthly and the sodding stuff still comes
back
strongly.

To check whether my experience was because of living in a cold climate, I
did a very quick google and found that Don Burke says that it's downside
is
that it is an environmental weed

http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/200...den3/flowering
_plants_and_shrubs/nandina__plant_of_the_week


Ahh well - then this is why I'm not into exotics. I also recant , although
I remember my brother had some that seemed very placid and dormant ... and
that was in Brisbane.
That being said we have some bamboo here which is clumping variety (Bambusa
oldhamii) - quite tall and compact - too tall for the OP, but some of the
other clumping varieties may be OK.
Amanda