Black Bamboo, would you? Do you?

Black Bamboo (phyllostachys nigra)

My interest in bamboo was only piqued recently. My neighbour at the back of my garden has elevated decking about three feet high. So on my side the fence is eight feet high but on his side due to their raised platform only five feet high. Don't get me wrong, I like the neighbours but I like my privacy more.

So what to do? I was looking at various bushes and hedges in my local garden centre when i came across their bamboo section and wow. I was sold.

The first I noticed was the green bamboo above, Phyllostachys aurea. This looked pretty stunning and it immediately drew me especially the height that was promised on the tag, potentially 8 metres! Insane, thought I. But boy, what a screen that would be.

And then I saw it, the black Bamboo. Phyllostachys Nigra. It was hugely tall. About 12 feet in height and the black canes of the plant looked utterly striking.

Little beauty

So that was it, I was decided. What a fantastic screen this would make for the back fence to give me my much needed privacy but also a stunning addition to the look of my garden.

But the price!! They were wanting 60 pounds! I was taken aback. Were they serious? Perhaps it is because I grow most of my plants from seed that the price horrified me. Stuff that, I thought. I will just buy the seeds and grow one myself for a fraction of the price.

A short while later and a bit of clicking on eBay and boom, 100 seeds for one British pound and no delivery charge straight from China. I still have no idea how this can be cost effective but hey, who am I to question it!

Odd looking things

A couple of weeks later the seeds arrived. Peculiar looking things. They arrived in a tiny bag with no instructions whatsoever to germinate. I took to Google and YouTube and was instantly confused by some of the more outlandish ways of germinating these seeds that people had, soaking them in vinegar and similar odd nonsense. I thought sod that and just planted them like any other seed and placed the pots on a warm windowsill.

In about two weeks, success!!

I wasted no time in planting the successful seedlings (there were about eight out of sixty or so) outside in pots. The weather was warm and I made sure they were well watered and they thrived. Several months later one of them which had gotten fairly bushy sprouted a cane!! I decided this one was the winner and could be planted at the bottom of the garden.

So I dig out a patch and dug a hole for it.

Then planted it with some feed and put some decorative bark down and finished it off with some log edging.

Now I know that there is much discussion about these species being invasive and there are warnings to put barriers in the earth to stop them spreading but 'apparently' in scotland it is so cold and rubbish that they hardly grow outward, so we will see. On that topic I will post another post.

So now it is a further month and a half on and another cane has sprouted! This one is fair growing and showing no signs of stopping yet which is exciting as the first cane petered out at about a foot and a half. This new one is about three feet!

Seems slightly black already but that isn't meant to happen till the second year.

I guess the moral of my story is that you don't always have to fork out a lot of money for plants if you have a little patience.

What do you think about bamboo? People seem to be really keen on them or bitterly against them. Let me know in the comments, I would love to get some other views.

I shall do regular follow up reports on the progress of my bamboo beauty.

I shall also report if it turns triffid and tries to kill us all!