Growing tips for plant care and garden advice on hardy bamboo plants ornamental grasses, sedges for contemporaryEuropean, prairie dry areas, and Oriental style gardens.

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Planting tips for bamboo and grasses!

Before deciding what and where you are going to plant make anassessment of the area. If you can try to do it early in the year so you haveplenty of time to plan ahead.

This is also a good time to determine where the shadow boundaries are. In the early months of the year, the sun is low on thehorizon and the shadows extend further into the garden.

Look out on a brightday and mark the extent of those boundaries with a couple of pegs.

Determiningthese boundaries is quite important as most true grasses relish the sun and dobest when the have maximum exposure to it, even through the winter months. Thisis because grasses including bamboo are incredibly sophisticated plants when it comes to converting sunlight to energy through photosynthesis.

Most grasses including bamboo, with a few exceptions do not generally do well in shade.However sedges and rushes do. Once you have determined the limitations of your boundaries you will have a good idea where grasses and sedges belong.

The exposure to wind and elements will depend to a degree on the of openness ofyour garden. The prevailing winds, coastal conditions, altitude andgeographical location will all have an affect on the microclimate of your garden.

Exposure to wind is probably the most damaging as it can dessicate plants and dry out the soil very quickly even in the winter months. It may bepossible to erect physical windbreaks such as fences or screens, however thereare many bamboos and grasses that stand up extremely well to exposed conditionsand the larger species can be used to good effect on the boundaries to form aquick growing living screen that is far cheaper more attractive and wonderfully animated in the wind when compared to conventional fencing.

Knowing your soil types is essential. I say types as even the smallest garden may have a varietyof different soil compositions and varying PH levels in it. Most grasses andbamboos are unfussy about the PH but there is always the one or two that are, so check the lists above.

Composition of the soil is also important, a shaded area on the north-facing wall of your property may prove to be extremely dry due toits shelter from the prevailing wet weather winds, absorption from thefootings, or excess drainage created by a high proportion of builders rubbleand sand that has been left or backfilled. These conditions are not conduciveto most sedges and in fact not conducive to much at all. The optionshere are to dig out the planting area and isolate the footings by placing apolythene sheet or damp course between the wall footings and then replacing thesoil after it has been much improved with lots of organic manure or compost and possibly riddled as well.

If you also have areas that have a suitable aspect for grasses, but tend to be heavy and wet, then you can improve those areas bydigging in plenty of sharp sand grit or shingle to improve the drainage. Unlikebamboos and sedges grasses don't have a high nutrient requirement in fact manydo best on poor soil so there is no great need to incorporate organic manuresor fertilizers. An excellent way to maintain drainage in these areas is to makea gravel garden where a number of specimen clump forming grasses can be shownoff to advantage within an area of gravel mulch. This will effectively suppressunwanted weeds and the gravel will work its way down over time into the soil and preserve its open structure and drainage.

Bamboos on the other hand do best with a fertile free draining and evenly moist soil. They will however toleratemost condition except to excess. Perhaps their biggest dislikes are waterloggedground and dense shade. Like grasses they do not take a lot of looking after ifplaced in the right spot with their minimum basic requirements plus a hair cut, comb through and brush up and an occasional feed.

The problems to be aware of with bamboos is that some are clumpers and well behaved, ideal for specimenplanting in lawns or as a backdrop for herbaceous perennials. The others arerunners beware some are rampant, such as the staggeringly beautifulChimonobambusa Tumidissinoda from China who like Genghis Kahn with his hoardswill gallop across your lawn and into next doors in no time at all. Thesebamboos are best kept In containers and they do well being shown off andappreciated as such.

Fargesia Robusta.

Sedge Carex 'Ice Dance.'

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Planning your bamboo or grass garden

Before you begin planning remember

If you give a plant growing conditions that are similarto those that it thrives in the wild then that plant will usually do verywell. Its not always as easy as it sounds. Every garden has its ownmicroclimate and although there are one or two things we can possibly do toimprove that, usually by adding or growing wind breaks, creating sun traps andopening up shaded areas the options are fairly limited. There is nothing on the other hand wecan do about the overall climate in general.

Living in the UK means weare living the temperate zone where our climate is very much influenced bythe fact we are an island. The presence of the gulf stream blessing us withmilder winters than we possibly deserve for our latitude particularly whencompared with corresponding latitudes in central China, where the winters canbe extremely cruel.

Many of the bamboos we sellcome from these areas in China such as Ganshu, Sezchuan, Zhejiang wherethe seasonal changes are far more extreme than we experience in the UnitedKingdom. As a consequence we can easily grow bamboos such as PhyllostachysBissettii which is hardy down to minus 23 degrees without much worry.However, on the other hand, we do not have such intensely hot summers, so where abamboo like Bissettii will quite easily reach over 12 meters or more in itshome environment we can expect it to make about two thirds of that in ourclimate. Usually between 5 and 8 meters depending on whereabouts in the UK we aresituated. Still a respectable size for a larger garden and quite formidable foran average one.

Although bamboos are truegrasses their needs differ from many of the ornamental grasses. Where themajority of grasses are happy with impoverished soil and handle severe droughtcondition and exposure to the elements such as wind, bamboos are a little morefussy though with a little care in choosing your plants you should be able tocope with most situations. In China much of the very best bamboos grow inhollows and shallow valleys protected from the drying winds yet still enjoyingmaximum sunshine and the benefits of a moist and fertile pockets at the bottomof the depression.

You probably havepicture in your minds eye of what you would like your garden to look like,but please take a moment before you start ordering your plants to make a basicappraisal of your garden's disposition with regard to the soil type the aspect andits exposure and also the shadow boundaries, a factor that is often overlooked.Once you know what you have, you will be able to assess whether it can beimproved or altered. If it's not possible to improve or alter your garden or thecosts are prohibitive then it may be necessary to compromise a little. Now Imean compromise a little, because although the grasses you had originally plannedto put in a particular position or situation may now appear unsuitable due tothe fact that position is shaded or far to wet. Don't worry there are loads of alternativesamongst the sedges that will literally thrive in those conditions and are very capable of producingsome of the most unusual and attractive displays that you could wishfor.

There is a saying aboutputting the wrong plant in the wrong place. Basically it's bull and the rest can go with the organic mulch. There is no suchthing as the wrong plant; they are all the right plants, just some of them getput in the wrong places. Use your eyes and look around you and appraise. Do yourhomework and find out which plant suits the soil type, which aspect isbest for that particular plant then you won't go far wrong.

Finally, if you have planted abamboo or grass and it doesn't look like its doing well, then dig it up and moveit somewhere else. Don't worry about the right time, the right time is then whileits looking poorly not when its dead. The plant wants to survive as much asyou want it to do.

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