Why bamboo?
Asians & South Pacificans
have no choice - bamboo is common to them as mowed lawns are to us.
Luddites make bamboo art, paper, shelter, toys, music, furniture, doodads.
Esthetes create bamboo gardens. Gourmets
eat it. Beverly Hillbillies screen with it. Hillside homeowners use it
to retain soil contours. Farmers
plant bamboo windbreaks. Environmentalists plant bamboo wildlife
refuges. Inner-city space aliens with pyramid-shaped aluminum hats
make medicine, weapons & sex-toys.
What about landscaping?
What about it? bamboo can be groundcover,
shrub, tree, grove, screen or hedge. Canes come in green, black, brown, red, orange,
grey, yellow, striped & variegated. Leaves are green, green & white or green & yellow.
I thought bamboo was tropical.
Many are, but hardy bamboo grows outdoors in
many parts of the US.
Won't it penetrate
concrete, sewers and buildings & take over the neighborhood?
Get a grip! Are New York City
sewers inhabited by alligators? Do Saturday Night Body Snatchers
beam electronic pods into our homes? Do alpha waves fertilize killer
tomatoes? Authors with a flair for the sensational & a
taste for evergreens & ficus tell fairy-tales about bamboo
in popular books & magazines. Growers & Nurseries
who don't sell bamboo describe it as terribly aggressive. But even the most
aggressive bamboo
may be contained by a variety of means.
Japanese live in paper houses surrounded by bamboo.
They control it by eating it, stepping on it and carefully placing rocks, paving
& pools. MacArthur said they had to control
their Bamboo! Truman knew this was a mistake & told Doug to stop
messing up something he didn't know about & come home. Brooks
Brothers, Levi-Straus, Levittown & Microsoft advertised American values.
Suburbs appeared with mowed lawns. Asia lost its cool.
My neighbor hates
bamboo & will do things
if it enters his yard.
If he has dry ground or concrete paving
or a concrete footing on the property line you don't have
a problem. If he has moist ground on his side of the
fence there are measures you can take to safely grow bamboo.
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Plant clumpers, which don't require subsoil barriers. If he is vicious & litigious you
should leave a gap between your bamboo & the fence wide enough
to allow cleaning out every few years. |
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Build a concrete trench on the property line to contain running rhizomes.
It only has to be 12-18" deep & as narrow as 6 to 12" ( deeper &
wider would be better). The concrete on the bottom of the trench
can be as thin as 2" (3-4" would be better) Drill 1" diameter holes every 4' & fill the holes with crushed
gravel so you can't push the gravel through the holes but allow water to drain. |
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Plant running bamboo in pots or planters. Create a porous barrier on the
bottom of the pot or planter with crushed gravel or lava rock. Spread dry
Portland cement, moisten it with a fine spray & let it harden. Check
to make sure there are no holes that rhizomes could creep through. Large pots
or planters with no drainage are OK if they include a sump & slaves who occasionally
pump
out stagnant water. |
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Sections of large-diameter drainage pipe are good but expensive. |
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30 mil thick plastic root barriers work until running bamboo finds a hole or gap or overlap
it can go through,
under or over. A double layer works better. A 12" deep barrier works
with black bamboo
for quite a few years, but other runners go under even a 30"
deep barrier in 5 years. Stray
rhizomes which escape such a barrier can be controlled by checking once a year
or so. |
I don't have a garden (sob) but want to grow bamboo.
Is there hope?
Of course! The original word for Garden
meant "Plants grown for ornament in moveable containers". Many bamboo
are terrific in containers. Many look good with heavy pruning to keep them small
& shapely.
Can I grow bamboo indoors?
Yes, but realize bamboo requires a lot
of light to thrive indoors or out. There are exceptions
to the rule - but bamboo indoors requires a lot of luck, effort & experimentation to achieve success.
The
most common problem is not enough light to support healthy growth.
Can I plant rhizome or cane cuttings?
Failures will be time-consuming. The death rate
will be high. If you value your time purchase established plants.
Why does my clumping bamboo
sometimes abort new shoots in the fall?
Any clumping bamboo will abort some or all of it's new
growth in the fall if -
(1) A hot growing season has encouraged the plant
to put more new shoots than the plant's existing root system can support.
(2) Cool fall weather makes plant think it's going
to get cold sooner than expected.
(3) There isn't enough water available to support
all the new growth.
(4) Wind or vandals of some sort touch or bend the
fragile new growth.