How well does bamboo spread out?

I am thinking about buying some bamboo to hide a house overlooking mine the problem is ideally I would need about 4 plants to completely hide the house and they are about £50 for a 6 foot plant and £100 for 12 foot (the height I need). As my friend says you pay for what you get and I dont know if I want to wait xxx (3?) years for the 6 foot bamboo to get to 12 foot.

So how well does bamboo spread I'm after width between 6 and 12 foot - do you have to split the roots etc? obviously it would have to be non-invasive bamboo...

 

The spread all depends on the species. If you want the big ones then its likely you will get one which could be invasive (there are varying degrees) The Phylostachis bamboos are your best bet - Vivax is a good one which will get big, but it will need a root barrier to keep it in its place.

I would personally buy smaller and feed and water like mad, they love water and are hungry plants. You will soon have the height and barrier you need. But unless your prepared to pay a lot you wont have the screen straight away.

 

EDIT: Misread men8ifr's post. :rolleyes:

 

Yes tricky with money - I think we all try to save money by default so would go with a £10 plant and wait.. but then a friend pointed something important out that for £xxx you can have the plant you want and will save you say 6 years of looking at a ugly house overlooking yours.. In my case it would be say 3 12 foot bamboo's = £300 maybe it's worth it. After all I paid £140K for my house and obviously I like my garden and not waiting 6 years would be nice...

 

Must be a small house!
Six year would be a long time to wait, I think you would end up regretting not spending a bit more!

 

I word to the wise regarding bamboo although I'm not sure if it covers all types of bamboo so if I'm wrong please forgive me!:o

When we moved house 2 years ago I brought with us a huge clump of the lovely old massively big bamboo from our old house and even though it settled in fine it started to die off last year! :eek:

I have since been told that when a bamboo reaches old age it dies off along with any other plants taken off the parent plant by division if you get my meaning? I thought this surely can't be right so when I visited my mum-in-law's I checked hers out (as she got a part of the parent plant many years ago) and sure enough hers has died off too!:( Hel.xxx.

 

Did it flower? Many bamboos die after flowering, and the same species tends to flower at roughly the same time all over the world. Some flower fairly often, say every 5 years but many others can take up to 100 years to flower.

 

Yes Gaz both mine and m-i-l's flowered at the same time, the original plant would have been about 15 years old or so.Hel.xxx.

 

Talking of invasive a friend of mine had a large bamboo clump at the back ot the garden which kept quietly to its place for several years, until they dug up and tilled the ground around it to renew the lawn. As soon as the ground was broken the bamboo set out for world domination and started spreading in all directions, until they decided in desperation to pull it all out and replace with a hedge.

 

My Bamboo flowered last year I bought it in 1980 if you leave the plant you may get some new seedlings I have.

Trevor

 

Thanx for that Bluedun I must admit I haven't had the heart to dig up the old bamboo fingers crossed I'll get lucky just like you did.:thumb:Hel.xxx.