easy to cultivate and almost maintenance-free. Annual feeding is not really necessary, but a small amount of general fertilizer can be applied in spring, if you wish. Pests and diseases are not usually a problem, although aphids can sometimes be a nuisance in the summer, and regular inspections should be made for them.
Propagation is easy by division but, as these plants are so slow to spread, very little spare material is available for this purpose.
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The berries are jet-black, shiny beads.
Bamboos add a lush, jungly feel to any garden. Their evergreen leaves and beautiful canes combine to create a permanently exotic presence. They are also immensely versatile plants and can be used in a wide number of ways.
Bamboos can be used as single, ornamental specimens to liven up a dull corner of the garden or create interest in boring beds and borders. They are an essential ingredient of Japanese-style gardens, and make excellent screening plants for blotting out unsightly views or nosy neighbours. Planted between garden and roadside, they can help to mask the sound of noisy traffic.
They can be grown as informal hedges, coping well with light clipping. They are also a good choice for play areas in the garden because they can take a fair amount of rough treatment from rampaging children. Since they harmonize well with water, they look especially effective planted near streams or ponds. If you’re lucky enough to own a lake, large sweeps of bamboo planted along the edge make a fine sight. And, although bamboos are not good at coping with very windy, exposed positions, if they’re planted where light breezes can swish through them, the rustling sound is very soothing.
The idea of introducing bamboos to gardening schemes fills some people with horror, as they imagine wild, invasive plants taking over every corner, ripping up ponds and patios in their wake. Although some of the fast-growing tropical species have the potential for doing this, most bamboos behave in a much more restrained and dignified manner. In fact, many of the bamboos in this chapter stay in a nice tight clump even after a couple of decades.
Most bamboos are not invasive plants, but well behaved and dignified.
All of the bamboos featured here are fully hardy down to -20°C (-4°F), so there is a good choice of bamboo for even the coldest garden, ranging from the lofty heights of Semiarundinariafastuosa to the delicate form of Pleioblastus variegata. These plants have been chosen for their suitability for average temperate gardens, their ornamental qualities and ease of cultivation. There is also a good chance that specialist nurseries will stock them.
Choose a decent-sized plant for transplanting into the garden. Seedlings are slow to get started, and it can take around five years for a clump to become noticeable. Bamboos prefer a sunny spot, although most will tolerate some shade. For really shady spots, choose Pseudosasa japonica or Sasa palmata nebulosa, which are the least fussy to cultivate.
All bamboos look much better planted away from strong winds. Permanently breezy conditions won’t kill them, but the wind can scorch the leaf edges, leaving them brown and crispy. Plants look much greener and healthier in a sheltered spot. An exception to this is the robust Pseudosasa japonica, which can take an astonishing amount of battering from seasonal storms.
Bamboos are very thirsty plants and need permanent access to irrigation. However, they will not stand very waterlogged conditions, so good drainage is important. Pools of water stagnating around the roots will lead to rotting. The best examples of green and healthy bamboos with enormous canes are always to be found in gardens that have a high water table or alongside rivers or streams. In these positions, water is constantly available for them to help themselves whenever it’s required.
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Sasa palmata ‘Nebulosa’ has the largest leaves of any hardy bamboo.
With this in mind, growing bamboos in pots is a very bad idea. If they dry out, they die – it’s as simple as that. Once they reach that brown, parched look, you’ve had it. Just think how a lawn looks after a hot dry summer. Bamboo reacts in the same way. Recovery from a brown, crisp specimen takes such a long time that the best thing to do is dispose of it and start again, as any new growth that might occur will have to regenerate from the old root system. If growing in a container is unavoidable, choose a massive pot and install an automatic irrigation system.
Bamboos are also greedy plants and appreciate lavish quantities of well-rotted manure or a blood, fish and bone mix applied during spring and early summer. Never apply seaweed or seaweed extract – the salt in this can kill bamboos. The only other maintenance required is to remove any old, brown leaves and to keep a lookout for aphids. These horrid creatures enjoy feeding on the new shoots during early summer. If not dealt with, they excrete a sticky substance, politely referred to as honeydew. This honeydew can speedily turn black from sooty mould, giving an unsightly appearance to the plant.
Bamboos grown as a hedge or screen can be clipped lightly with shears along the top of the clump after the main growing season, which lasts from spring through to early summer. If a mature bamboo has grown taller than required, use secateurs to cut through any woody canes.
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New canes of Phyltostachys aureosutcata ‘Aureocaulis’.
New canes emerge from the ground during each new season. The width of these new canes remains the same throughout the bamboo’s life; small ones do not become fatter with age. Therefore, if you spot small, skinny canes, it would be a good idea to chop them off at ground level as soon as they appear, so that the plant can put all its energies into the larger ones. Each year, bamboos produce canes that are generally slightly fatter and taller than the previous year. The really huge canes found on bamboos are the result of two things: copious amounts of water and age. A really large clump of tall canes with a good circumference could be at least thirty years old.
As will be noted, the Latin names of bamboos are absurdly complicated to learn. Horticultural boffins have had a field day with this type of plant. Even worse, just as you’ve mastered a particularly silly name, some rotter goes and changes it again! It’s very annoying. Unfortunately, bamboos flower so infrequently that the chance to study them is rare. This means that mistakes in categorizing them have occurred in the past. Renaming them is not done out of vindictiveness or pomposity, but as a result of the latest studies.
On the subject of flowering, this is an unusual event that, from a gardener’s point of view, is a bit of a disaster. Generally, once a bamboo has flowered, it dies. Each type of bamboo tends to flower at the same time, wherever it is. For example, if Fargesia murieliae is flowering in one country, the chance of it flowering at the same time elsewhere in the world is very high. This phenomenon was once attributed to the supposedly supernatural powers of bamboo. Although various other theories abound, a much more boring explanation is likely. After flowering, bamboos set seed. As this happens perhaps only once every hundred years, bamboo enthusiasts seize the opportunity to obtain fresh supplies and a new batch of planting using seed of the same age starts all over the world.
