(HOST) Charlie Nardozzi is an all-around gardening expert who says that East can meet West in the garden – by planting bamboo.
(NARDOZZI) I love Asian gardens with their simple structures and exotic plants. While many plants can be used to grow an Asian garden, one of my favorites is bamboo. Most gardeners think of bamboo as a tropical plant, but you can grow it this far north. You just have to be choosy about the varieties.
There are two types of bamboo. The "running" bamboo sends underground rhizomes out 10 feet or more in a single season. This bamboo can quickly become an invasive weed, so take heed in growing it. The other type of bamboo grows in clumps. It doesn’t send out runners but gradually spreads from the main plant. It tends to be shorter and not as dramatic as the running bamboos, but definitely more controllable. The roadside plant many people call Japanese bamboo is actually not a bamboo at all; it’s Japanese knotweed. This invasive weed should be avoided in the landscape altogether.
I have grown both "running" and "clumping" bamboos, and here are some of the hardiest ones to try. Phyllostachys is a genus of bamboo that most people envision when you talk about this plant. This is the type of bamboo used to build houses, scaffolds, irrigation pipes and a hundred other useful things in Asia. The Phyllostachys I’ve grown is called golden grove bamboo. It produces 1- to 2-inch diameter shoots (or culms) that, in theory, will grow 1 foot a day and reach to 30 feet tall. In my part-shade location, they only reach 10 feet tall, but they have beautiful yellow coloring. It’s hardy to minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit, which is marginal in my Champlain Valley landscape. If I protect the culms in winter, they do stay evergreen. If not, the shoots die to the ground and are replaced by new ones in the spring. Golden grove bamboo makes an attractive backdrop or screen in the landscape. I love how the wind rustles the leaves on a warm summer day. The only warning is that shoots can spread many feet from the original clump. I grow mine against the foundation of the house, with lawn all around it. I simply mow down invading shoots in spring to keep them from spreading. Otherwise, I’d have to construct an underground, metal barrier to stop their spread or grow them in a large container and bring them indoors in winter.
If you’re worried about bamboo taking over the neighborhood, a safer way to go is to grow the clumping forms. The Fargesia genus of bamboo produce smaller culms than the running types, but stay contained and are hardy to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit. They stay evergreen with some winter protection. One of the toughest is Fargesia nitida. It grows about 8 to 12 feet tall and has one half inch diameter dark green shoots. It’s a favorite panda food. Luckily, there aren’t any native pandas roaming the Vermont forests.
So try some bamboo in your garden this year. A little Asian flare may make your yard a quieter and more peaceful place to be.