Story Title: Bamboo for Home Gardens
Episode: Seven
Date: April 17th 2010
Presenter: Matt Leacy

Bamboo is an amazing plant with so many uses. Matt visits Mr Bamboo and shares tips on selecting the right bamboo for your garden, and reveals how to care for bamboo.

Featured Plant

• The main trap with bamboo is not checking how tall they get or how big the culm is before you plant.

• Some choices of bamboo for the smaller spaces are the following clumping bamboos and all of them have the ability to achieve dense screens:
  
  - Drepanostachyum falcatum or Blue bamboo grows to about 4m high and likes light to full shade but has really long delicate dainty leaves that are a real feature.
  
  - Alphonse Kar or Bambussa multiplex var alphonse kar has the most striking yellow culms with green stripes, it grows in full sun to part shade and has the ability to screen up to about 8m.
  
  - Bambussa textilis gracilis or ‘Slender weaver' is a more commonly used bamboo and this one also grows in full sun to part shade and will grow to about 6m high.

• To give the plant more impact it is a good idea to thin it out and to do this you just cut out a few of the older more developed culms at the base. Don't take out the new culms before they have developed because this will make the bamboo rethink its growth habit.

Thanks to Mr Bamboo for allowing us to film. Check out their website for more information on bamboo.

Contact:

Landart Landscapes Pty Ltd
Address: 1/68 Tulloh St Willoughby 2068        
Phone: (02) 99580463
Email: info@landart.com.au
Website: www.landart.com.au

Mr Bamboo
Address: 18 Myoora Rd, Terrey Hills NSW
Phone: 02 9486 3604
Website: www.mrbamboo.com.au