Steve

I think I'd like some, too. I'll have to think a little more about where I'll put it.

I had asked Nate about bamboo on the forum before, but if I remember right, he described some short varieties. I'm excited to hear about one that grows nice and tall and isn't _too_ invasive!

Steve

The Ogden Botanical Gardens has some, but they have not come up yet, so I don't really know what it even looks like... just that it is a nice plant to have.

I finally found a home for all my pyracanthus, that turned out to be Barberries.... I have a friend who has goats and she is going to hide her goat pen behind them....
As soon as I decide exactly what I am going to plant where the last three barberries are, they are going to be goat fences! :-)

I purchased my bamboo from Bamboo Nursery in Idaho. They have winters as hard or harder than ours. (208) 793-4121. Marty, the owner, was a big help. I drove up to Idaho and met him half way to pick up the order.

I've had quite a bit of leaf browning due to the long stretch of cold weather and bright sunny days we had this past winter. They will re-leaf after the new shoots arrive. (Marty suggests cutting down or pruning the plants to give more energy to the new shoots.) The bamboo not in full sun had little browning.

I'm planning on purchasing more this spring to plant at a my brother's house.

Regarding bamboo here in Salt Lake, I saw this earlier GardenWeb post:

* Posted by Eric_Layton z6 UT (My Page) on
Mon, Sep 26, 05 at 19:28

"Mang182,
Lagoon has some bamboo by the Samurai Ride and also some by Rattlesnake Rapids but I haven't been there lately so I don't know how it has held up. The International Peace Gardens at Jordan Park has Ph. rubromarginata, Ph. aurea, and Ps. japonica. The rubro grows probably over 15 feet tall, but they trim it back to about 8 feet each year and have it confined to about 16 square feet of growing soil. Not the optimum conditions by a long shot. My tallest bamboo is about 10' after 3 years. The tallest species I have are Phyllostachys: glauca, rubro, nuda, decora, and aureosulcata. You are welcome to stop by and see what I have. Drop me an email and we can arrange a time."

Check out his member page - http://www.gardenweb.com/auth/nph-logincheck.cgi?action=public_profile&user=eric_layton

Bamboo is addictive!

Do you think bamboo would be a good sound barrier? Am considering a fast growing evergreen, but the location for planting is not very wide. Currently there is 26' of old lilac bushes about 12 feet high. These do nothing for sound and could plant the bamboo in front of them.

I have seen Eric_in Laytons bamboo he has a great collection in fact some of the picture that I posted came from his collection. Anyhow I appreciate everyones posts here. My bamboo is shooting and doing well.

They could really do some wonderful things with that garden... they still have alot to do, to make that garden look truly authenticly Oriental.
They have a little pagoda and a Japanese maple, the bamboo, but not much more.

Some days I go there and wish I could redo all of their landscaping ...LOL... like I have enough to do in my own yard!

I keep thinking it would be fun to stand in the different lines and actually have something interesting to look at.

I know Disneyland really prides themselves on their landscaping and has an entire team that go in after the park closes each night to redo all the beds.

They have several full time employees dressed as tourist who all they do all during the day is walk around and take notes to what needs to be done when the park closes.
Then the teams work all night.
They are to be completely finished and no evidence of them on the park grounds @ 7AM or they are charged a whooping 10K per MINUTE!

Of course Lagoon is not that uptight, if anything they are to lax. I think it would be nicer if they made their grounds a bit nicer... more perennials, more annuals, more design and interesting gardens.

As of Easter Sunday, they had large amounts of weeds in every bed I saw.
I guess I shouldn't talk... I have weeds too!

In my earlier post I meant to say I purchased from Horseshoe Nursery in Idaho - not Bamboo Nursery.

Regarding the sound barrier question, in a few years I'll let you all know if it can deaden noise from a neighbor's pool! (Emagineer, try posting your question in the Bamboo forum.)

One more shoot this morning... So far a few of my Yellowgroove and Spectabilis have started to shoot. Nothing yet from my Humilis. This is exciting...

I added a semiarundinaria fastuosa - temple bamboo, to my collection. It's rated at -5F, but since my humilis has done well at a 0F hardiness rating, I thought I'd give it a try. (My humilis is looking good - a few have started to shoot!)

Some of the facts/needs:

The area is on the north side of our house. It currently receives shade from a tall pine on the west side of the house. (Though the tree may need to be removed soon)

Our yard is pretty small depth-wise (as is our neighbors), so we don't want anything that will be too "deep".

We also don't want any variety that will send out aggressive rhizomes, since all the surrounding neighbors just banded together to get rid of some pernicious Boston Ivy and grape vines.

As we are in an older neighborhood, we have power and telephone lines stretching through our backyard approximately 20 ft up from the ground.

And of course we have an extreme hot/cold climate since we live in Salt Lake.

SO, Is there a bamboo out there that will work within our restrictive conditions?

My wife and I just returned from 18 months in Indonesia where bamboo is used for everything from ladders and scaffolding to building houses. There are small businesses that do nothing but sell cut bamboo in pieces up to 25 feet long.

The fall before we left for Indonesia I planted four 2 gallon containers of Fargesia rufa that I bought at 75% off from Lowes along a fence line to try and hide a metal shed in my neighbors yard. They were about 2 feet tall.

When we got back in June I was happy to see all had survived and were now over 3 feet tall with some shoots reaching over 4 feet. What surprised me is how wide and deep they have become. They are over 3 feet wide and dense enough to hide at least half of shed. Hopefully in a few more years it will reach 7 to 8 feet and the eyesore will disappear completely.

I got some Arrow Bamboo a couple weeks ago in a small half gallon container. I guess I bought right before it started to shoot, and did it ever. It was up to my knee when I bought it, and tonight it nearly poked me in the eye. The Golden Crookstem hasn't budged, however.

With kind regards,
Jacoy Williams

i live in cottonwood heights (E side of salt lake city)and have some black bamboo as well as a couple dozen different types of bamboo growing at my house. my collection is about 4-5 years old and i've purchased most of them from here : http://www.bamboogarden.com/ . it's not local but after purchasing locally and online i prefer to buy from bamboo garden. if you have questions feel free to email me.

There was not one tree on our property so I have been looking into trees I wanted to plant to block views and provide shade. But today I decided the best thing to do would be plant some timber bamboo for that purpose. They are much cheaper and provide the shade and privacy much faster than any tree would.

I emailed bamboogarden, told them where I lived (zone, temp, location, etc.) and sent a picture of the area where we want to plant it. They suggested Phyllostchys Decor (Beautiful Bamboo) and a couple others but we went with the Beautiful Bamboo. I also ordered some Black Bamboo.

I am very excited! Thanks for all the help this thread has been.

BTW: I also did a bunch of research on controlling the runners and I think I'll go with a 3/4 barrier and a 1/4 pruning ditch.

My black bamboo and beautiful bamboo I planted in a large open area have both turned golden. They both still have all of their leaves, they are just gold instead a green. Actually very pretty.

I took advantage of the warm weather and cleared all the wood chips away from the area so I could prep it to install the bamboo barrier and add another layer of compost. What I found is that the black bamboo in the few short growing months it had last year (planted in late June) has already shot runners out in every direction about 6 feet away. Very impressive. The beautiful bamboo seemed to do much better than the black bamboo last year. But now it seems the black bamboo was too busy working on spreading.

I will take pictures in June this year to compare the difference one year can make.

Hope you all are looking forward to spring, it will be here before you know it.

btw if you need to get rid of some of those 6 foot runners I would be more than happy to give them a good home :)

I want to try Bamboo. I don't know what variety I should get. I am not trying to block for noise as much as for sight. I'd like them to get very tall and grow quickly. does anyone have any ideas for me?

Here are some photos of the bamboo barrier installation party and the end results: