Hi there.
I have about an 8 meter long wall paralell to the main road at the front of my house.
I want to plant some mature 3 meter high bamboos there to block the road and create some privacy.
I also want some evergreen crepers, as there is a 1.5 meter wall all ready there that is quite ugly and needs covering!
Any ideas of type of bamboo to use or evergreen, fast-growing, colourful creepers would be appreciated.
Thank-you in advance.

There's not really such a thing as planting mature bamboo, it rarely matures fully if contained in a portable container - a containerised 3m plant is probably going to be 5m after a few years in the ground. Also if you do buy it in a 100-litre container, it tends to cost an arm and a leg, so buying 8 such containers would be cost an extraordinary amount of money, hey, but maybe you are rich. More normal strategies without such large amounts of money involve waiting for the plant to mature over a few years to generate full screening effect, as with other kinds of hedge.

Before we can answer your question (1) What is your location/climate/soil (2) what is the aspect of the side of the wall you are putting the bamboo on (3) many nice bamboos are invasive - maybe the road is an adequate containment in that direction - but what about in the other direction and sideways - what is there?

Hi. Thanks for your reply.
I am in South West London.
My garden is south facing.
Not sure of soil type.
They will stretch from path to next border, and the borders they will be in are about a meter and a half wide, so not worried about the spreading, as I will keep them under control.
They will not be kept in containers, they will be put in the ground.
Also, any ideas regarding the creepers?

I was a bit worried from your spelling of meter you were in USA, which would take me out of my comfort zone. Your location means that any of the standard bamboos sold in Britain will do well for you.

If you think that being in a border 1.5m wide means you aren't worried about spreading, then you don't know how bamboo can spread! If you have an agressively spreading type of bamboo, you can have a culm coming up 1.5m away from the main clump in just one season. If there is a lawn behind you border, you can mow it out, so that is OK. But I would be worried about what is beyond the ends of the border, and maybe put in a barrier their, especially if it is neighbours or something.

If you want bamboo that is only about 3m high, and very little worry to about spreading, then I would consider the Fargesia family of bamboos. They are true clumping bamboos. (Unlike the "clump-forming bamboo" of garden-centre parlance). They are also relatively cheap, at least the standard types, if you shop about for them - also people selling them at fancy prices to people who don't realise they ought to be cheap. To save money, buy some larger samples, and divide them, and plant at 0.5m intervals, and you'll have your screen in about 3 years if you keep it well watered/fertilised. Best time of year to do this is Sept, but March/April is OK too. Some of them are too small, F. rufa too small, , F murieliae has some smaller forms which may be too small (simba might just do you jumbo would definitely be big enough), but the basic kind is probably just right. F. nitida had a flowering event recently (which kills it), so make sure your seller is selling you post-flowering F. nitida if you choose that - the problem does not exist with the beautiful juizhaigou forms. F. scabrida, a beautiful one, is a bit more of a wild card, turned out to be somewhat spreading for some people, (and may turn out not to be Fargesia - it is difficult separating it from Yushania and Borinda).

The other strictly clumping type that is reasonably hardy is Thamnocalamus. I have a T. crassinodus Merlyn and it has been defoliated by the recent winter, so we learn it is not as strictly hard as Fargesia, but I'm reasonably sure it is still alive.

The Phyllostachys family is the main family contains many beautiful bamboos, but they are spreading. In Britain in many cases they only spread slowly, especially in cooler drier areas, though some are pretty aggressive even here. Also they can take a good decade to establish themselves properly. And how aggressive they are depends upon species and the conditions. If you have a nice warm site with damp soil, as you might in SW London, you could grow some monsters, so be careful with your selection, if you don't want to get much more than 3m. If you are looking for something not too enormous, then the popular black bamboo (P nigra) is usually less agressive, but be aware that some specialist types of P nigra such as henonis are more agressive and not black. P. aurea is also less agressive, but the standard type is a bit boring, and green not golden, there are pretty ones such as koi and holochrysa. P. aureocaulis spectabilis is a lovely one, not too large, but it is a bit more aggressively spreading. You will find others in the breeders' lists.

If you like plain green bamboo, then Semiarundinaria fastuosa is the classic green hedging bamboo, though in good conditions it will grow 5m easily, and can get aggressive.

You will find Pseudosasa japonica widely sold, and will probably grow about 4m or something, and many people say it is not too aggressive - I have one which is proving very nonagressive, but it is in a dry spot. With their persistent culm sheaths, it has a different look which you like or you don't.

Have a look around some of the specialist bamboo-seller websites for descriptions of bamboos, and remember, they always downplay the spreading aggressiveness.
Some good ones are
Jungle Giants | Bamboo Specialists Homepage
Whitelea Nurseries
Pan-Global Plants - Home (not mail order)
Hardy bamboos | grasses, herbaceous, hardy exotics, hardy in the UK, rare bamboo and grasses, buy from hardybamboo.com and PW Plants

I would like more traditional golden stemmed with green leave type bamboo.
3-5 meters in height maximum.
I think the less aggressive the better.
The lawn and rest of garden will be tended by a gardener, so any spreading will be monitored and dealt with!
Semiarundinaria fastuosa may be the one for me, Fargesia or Thamnocalamus.
Are these types likely be bought at 3meters in height?
You are suggesting buying them in large clumps and splitting them.
Is this only a means to save money or is it to encourage them to spread outward?
If I were to leave them as they were bought, should I still plant them with .5 meters in between?
Thanks for your advise.

Fargesia, Thamnocalamus come in a variety of colours, but not really yellow. S. fastuosa is very green; S. yashadake kimmei is very yellow, but not tall enough for you.

Most of the decently yellow bamboos are in the Phyllostachys family. As noted above, P. aurea is one of the best behaved in British conditions (but rampant in some other climates), but the standard type, most commonly sold, is not really yellow. But there are good yellow cultivars of it from specialists such as Koi and Holochrysa. P. aureocaulis spectabilis is a bit more vigorous with a somewhat more wandering tendency, but is probably also just the right size. Other yellow Ph risk getting bigger than you want.

By dividing, I was trying to save you money. Dividing does not promote growth, it sets it back initially. Yes, with larger specimens you would spread them further apart. Fully 3m specimens are available, but in quantity you might need to go to a specialist large specimen supplier such as tendercare.co.uk (Denham, on A413 at close by M40 J1). http://www.tendercare.co.uk/pdf/Tend...amboo_List.pdf Their 3m P. aureosulcata spectabilis, for example, costs £300 per specimen and come in 160 litre pots, which will doubtless weigh 300kg+, so you'll need major excavation and lifting machinery. Whereas I was trying to do you the whole job for the price of one of those: eg £300 you could by 6x 20l Fargesia plants from Jungle Giants, divide each into 3, and plant at 60cm intervals. Just have to wait a few years for full effect.

The other suppliers I mentioned do have a scattering of tall bamboos in (much) smaller pots, but will obviously be a lot less mature, and whether they can do quantity, well you'd have to ask.

Thank-you very much for your help.
It gives me a bit to think about..........

Most of the decently yellow bamboos are in the Phyllostachys family.

Sorry, this isn't meant to detract from your reply but there is no
Phyllostachys family.

Poaceae is the family Bambusoideae is the subfamily and Phyllostachys
is the genus.

--

09=IX

Thank-you so much for your help regarding the bamboos.
You sound very knowledgeable!

I just thought I would let you know that I have gone completely off course and ordered myself some cyprus, "excalibur golden" to be precise!
Do you have any hints when it comes to preparing the ground for planting?

It doesn't need any encouragement, it will grow fast enough without you helping it. I don't recommend leyland cypress (because that is what you have bought, albeit in a yellow cultivar) as hedging plant, because if it isn't maintained it becomes a problem. If you do miss a pruning, you may not be able to cut it back to the size you want, because if you cut it back beyond the living fronds, it doesn't reshoot, and becomes unsightly. You can't put the trimmings on your compost heap. The ground around it becomes bare earth as nothing will grow near it. And it smells horrible too. At least the yellow one isn't quite as rampant as the green one...

You forgot the PedantOn PedantOff markers.

I have bought them and they will be delivered on Friday!
Once they are planted, when should they be pruned?
Should I leave them to their own devices, and give them a trim with a hedgetrimmer every so often?
Also, why can the trimmings not go to compost?
Thanks

Depending upon how tidy you are, you can get away with a single annual pruning in late summer/early autumn, eg Aug/Sep. Then has enough time to recover before frosts (so you don't get any brown patches) and looks tidy for most of the year. Additional pruning other times in the growing season if you are of the nail-scissors tidiness type. Make sure that you prune EVERY YEAR once established, because if you don't, you'll discover you can't cut them back to the size you want without permanently exposing brown patches. If you miss the late summer prune, do it immediately the following spring.

Hedge trimmer fine for the sides. May need lopper or saw for controlling the height.

If you try putting the cuttings on your garden compost heap the compost, you'll find that they can survive undecomposed for years, unless you have a really hot efficient composting, and the resulting compost is very acidic. Fine to put in the council green waste.