Type

Grass · Perennial

Botanical family

Mixed / other

Foliage color

Green

Sunlight

Sun or partial shade, either suits it.

Watering

Keep the soil moist, particularly through the first year.

Feeding

One feed a year, in spring.

Frost tolerant

Yes

Flowering

June

Pruning

Thin out the old culms once a year in spring.

• Apr–Jun Spring Growth
• Jun–Sep Flowering
• Sep–Nov Growing
• Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
• Jan–Apr Leaf Fall

Plant spacing

6 ft 7 in

In-row spacing

6 ft 7 in

Between rows

8 ft 2 in

Square-foot density

Not suited to SFG

Root system

Running rhizomes

Working depth

4–12 in

Can reach

18 in down where the soil allows

Spread

16–49 ft across, about 2–4× the width of the plant

Shallowest pot

12 in of soil

It travels underground, and it does not stop where you would like it to. Taking the tops off does nothing at all to the run, and every fragment left behind is a new plant. In open ground the only boundary that holds is a barrier sunk two spits deep, or a container with its rim standing clear of the soil.

Everything depends on which sort you have. A running bamboo sends rhizomes many metres out, under a fence and up in the next garden, and needs a barrier sunk 60 cm or more with the top left proud of the soil. A clumping bamboo widens slowly from the crown and needs nothing at all. Find out which before planting, not after.

Figures recorded for Bamboo itself. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.

• Leaf curl in cold or drying winds — stress, and it passes.
• Bamboo mite through a hot, dry summer.
• Flowering, which is very rare and can weaken or kill the plant.

Ferns, Hostas, Hakonechloa, Hydrangea

Green-leaved grasses, like this one.

• Northern sea oats
• Imperata
• Mondo grass
• Dianella