Carolina Gardening: Name that bamboo, 1 by keonikale

keonikale wrote:
Reviving this old thread... I'm at it again, I can't seem to help myself. Or maybe I just get *reaaally* bored this time of year with nothing to do in the garden.

I have collected more of Phyllostachys aurea to use as a screen in the back of my yard along my back fence. Now that they've constructed the new homes, despite the woods between, it's something I want to block out.

At first I was going to just stick it in the ground, let it do it's thing. Then I thought about it... knew what many of you would say, and decided I was better digging the trench and putting in a rhizome barrier. So now I have a 47' by 3' hole to dig, 2 feet deep. That should keep me busy until Spring, and seriously make my neighbor wonder what the heck I'm doing (he can see right over the lower half of my fence).

Most places say 30mil plastic is more than strong enough, so I'm confident that's fine for this smaller bamboo. If it was a giant Timber Bamboo, I'd probably go with 40-60mil thickness.

Real question is... I don't know what height to use. In the area I'm planting it, in the 'woods' I have about 6" of black top soil and then under that it's all sand for the next foot and a half. At about 24" down I hit a gravel-like sandy material which is a real pain to try and dig into. So at the moment, I'm going with the sites that suggest a 24" height barrier that's 30mil thickness. My next option, for a significantly higher price, is 40mil at 30" tall. The thicker this gets the harder it'll be to manage once I try and install it. Plus, despite my sandy soil, I just cannot believe those rhizomes would dip over a foot into the sandy soil, hit that rocky stuff, and then pop back up on the other side. Every time I dig one up, it's no more than 6-8" under the ground. Still, with my sandy soil, I want to be safe. Do you all think 24" is enough, or should I consider the 30"?

Just throwing this all out there for any thoughts or suggestions you guys have. I may even dig the pit to cover the entire back fence, which is about 67ft total. I'll wait until I get this first 47ft dug first... I got further along in a half day yesterday than I figured I would (I cannot believe how much dirt comes out of a 2ft deep hole, wow).

Thanks everyone. I'm also about 99% confident on the ID now, so that's helped a lot.

-John

Here's a photo of Tori holding it after we brought more home on Saturday. 18' of Bamboo on top of the Escape was quite humorous, especially coming over the dam. Next time I think I'm just gonna get my parents tractor trailer, will make it easier.

This message was edited Jan 11, 2010 3:59 PM