Dermot66;799438 Wrote:
> I have just bought a phyllostachys Nigra bamboo to provide a screen
> between my neighbours garden and my own. I bought it when it was
> arround 6 feet tall and want to encourage it to grow maybe a foot
> taller but more im****tantly to bush out to provide an adequate screen.
>
> Could the forum provide me with some advice on how I can encourage it
> to do this.
Existing canes, once fully expanded for that season, will never grow
any larger. If you have shoots currently expanding, you'll just have to
wait and see what they do, since their performance will largely have
been set by the root structure established over the previous season.
Now that you have it in the ground, it has the op****tunity
substantially to expand its root system, given sufficient food and
water (and nature unaided can be quite adequate depending upon the
location, though supplementary assistance is advised in other places).
July-October is the key period. Adequately fed, you can expect it to
send up ever larger culms each year, to a mature size in the region of
12-20 feet. Even a somewhat undernourished plant will proably achieve
10 feet. If you wish to restrict it to 7ft, you'll either have to
starve it (but not so much that it declines), or (not aesthetically
approved of) trim it.
Over the next few years, assuming you feed and water adequately ,
you'll get a larger clump, with larger culms, and the larger culms will
have longer branches and more leaves. Be aware that it will have fewer
leaves near the ground, and more higher up.
Then when it is ready, it will spread more widely, by sending out long
runners. Phyllostachys bamboos nearly all run eventually, but how fast
depends on climate and species. In much of the US, P nigra is generally
pretty rampant because of their warm wet summers. In the UK's cooler
and less generously damp climate, they are considered fairly
well-behaved, often waiting up to a decade before sending out some
fairly tentative runners. A well-fed one I have seen pictures of in
mild North Kent was getting fairly aggressive fairly quickly. In
contrast, some clumps in gardens near my office in central London,
where they have to compete with mature shrubs and trees in a heavily
shaded, dry shrub border, are sending up rather weedy shoots that will
be smaller than existing culms.
Because of the eventually spreading tendency, if you have it close to
the boundary of your property you may wish to insure against annoying
your neighbour by installing a rhizome barrier.
If you really want a reliably 7ft, reliably non-spreading bamboo, I
suggest you whip it out and plant a Fargesia murieliae "Simba" instead.
Because it won't spread, (other than by gradual radial enlargement)
you'll have to plant a clump once every 3-4 feet to get a hedge out of
it.
--
echinosum
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