Bamboo Plants

Bamboo plants require no pesticides or fertilizers to grow and need little water to sustain, although they do not tolerate completely dry or waterlogged conditions.

Bamboo is popular as an evergreen garden plant and makes fantastic ornamental focal points, privacy screens, hedging, windbreaks, ground cover, and landscape design features in the domestic garden or on a commercial level.

Although bamboos may not really look much like a type of grass, they are classified as perennial plants of the Poaceae family... grasses.

This plant group has ninety one genera and over one thousand species; there is a vast range extending from tiny dwarf varieties to some gigantic members in this group. The biggest 'timber bamboo' type species grow at a rate of up to a metre every day and to a diameter that facilitates bamboo materials also being used for timber-based products some might normally consider would need to be manufactured from wood.

Bamboo grows right across the world in many different countries, northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere such as; India, Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and the US, in a range of hot and tropical climatic conditions and cool temperate climates too.

Bamboo Types

The two different types within bamboo species are basically; running bamboo and clumping bamboo. It's important that you choose the right type for your garden or landscape project.

If you are looking for an ornamental bamboo plant for a focal point in your garden and have a certain area of space to allocate to this as a structural planting, be sure to choose a 'clumping' bamboo.

If on the other hand you are planning on planting for a windbreak or privacy screen of bamboo, a running species will fill that up nicely but you will need to put a barrier in place to make sure it only grows where you want it to.

Several clumping bamboos set at certain distances apart will make an equally effective windbreak or hedge but will grow in clumps rather than spread by sending rhizome runners underground.

Choosing Bamboo Species

Bamboo often gets a very bad press and this is only due to the wrong type of species being planted in the wrong environment. Running species spread rapidly once established and this causes some despair where this types has been planted in small domestic garden situations and has since got out of control. Gardeners and their neighbours can have a nightmare on their hands if they have planted running bamboo without a rhizome barrier of any kind.

There is no need to plant the wrong type of bamboo as there are so many species to choose from and plenty of clumping types that will not dive under your fence into the neighbour's garden!

Hopefully you have come to this site to choose bamboo plants not to find out how to get rid of them. However, if you do need to get some sort of control over an existing bamboo plant there are a list of links at the bottom of this page that take you to other pages on the subject of controlling bamboo, and even on killing it if you have no alternative.

Clumping Bamboo

Clumping bamboo does not send out runners, it stays in a tight clump, grows very slowly in comparison to running bamboo, and therefore makes a better choice for a non-invasive garden plant.

The clumping species of bamboos have a different rhizome system to the running species and they grow in a way that looks similar to inverted umbrellas normally producing new shoots yearly. The circumference of a maturing plant will grow bigger each year but by small amounts and very slowly.

Even though clumping bamboos do grow in a different way to running species, the clumps do still grow in size and the larger species need a significant amount of room as they reach maturity. You therefore you need to choose a planting spot carefully while taking note that bamboo plants of the clumping type need plenty of growing space. Don't plant bamboos too near to fences, walls, or other types of structures to allow a certain amount of annual growth and widening of the diameter of the clump.

Clumping bamboos can successfully be grown in containers with the correct care although they do grow better and stay healthier when allowed to grow free in the soil. See my page on container bamboo about caring for bamboo grown in containers. When the rhizome, or root, system is contained and it grows too big for its container, and the plant has not been potted on into a larger container when required, this is a plant that may break your pot eventually.

Running Bamboo

The rhizomes of running bamboo species spread out very quickly, and often aggressively. Running types of bamboo are therefore ideal for creating a bamboo windbreak or privacy wall by planting for the purpose of hedging or garden privacy screening provided you are prepared to put in a barrier to contain the running species.

If putting in a barrier isn't something you can do, or want to do, you can get the same effect by just planting clumping bamboo at distances to suit the size of the chosen species.

If you want your screen or windbreak to establish quickly you will need to acquire enough plants and plant them at regular distances apart. Buying one plant and expecting it to grow into a massive dense windbreak in one year will not work, bamboo plants need to be given time to mature and send out running rhizomes. For a high speed screen, buy a few large plants and direct the rhizome growth so they can spread to eventually meet each other and fill the gaps.

If you are prepared to wait a few years for your windbreak or hedge to grow you won't need to buy so many plants initially. As your bamboo plants spread, provided you ensure you control their growth in the direction you want them to grow, you will eventually get a good screen. Be warned that it could take a long time though. Depending on the health of the plants, the growing and environmental conditions, bamboos do not always take off immediately and it can take a few seasons for them to establish to maturity.

Controlling Bamboo

Part of the value of growing bamboo plants is the fact that they grow rapidly and are evergreen along with there being some species that will spread aggressively once they are mature by shooting out runners.

However, care needs to be taken when deciding to buy and plant a running bamboo species due to its invasive behaviour. You can contain the growth of running bamboo with various methods such as by installing a strong bamboo rhizome barrier and/or regular maintenance to prevent spread.

There are methods of growing bamboo control and containment that involve pruning bamboo.

Books

Here is a selection of books on bamboo for sale from the US. Don't let the fact that they are for sale from the US put you off as sellers will often deliver worldwide anyway.

Amazon.com Widgets