Hi Everyone I'm looking to do a small asian flavoured garden in my backyard this year. I'm not too picky about it being "authentic" anything but would like it to have a bit of an asian flare. I have a small berm along the back of my backyard and am hoping to use this small hill for the garden. So far I have only planted a Japanese maple (I can't remember which one right now - possibly a crimson queen but it's still a little seedling) and am planning on putting a little fountain/rock stream beside it. I'm also plannning on getting a few larger rocks to half-bury and plant around. The hill is only about 4 ft high and about 5 ft in depth but runs the entire width of the backyard - approx 40 ft. So it's not a huge area. I live in zone 5b. Any suggestions of plants/shrubs that would help me achieve the asian feeling? As you can tell from my name - I'm not a super skilled gardener (yet) and would like things that are easier to keep alive and don't take a huge amount of maintenance. As a side note - I've heard bamboo is very invasive and spreads like crazy. Any suggestions on how to use it without it taking over? Thanks for any suggestions or feedback!
Hi Brownthumbs: I'm probably about the last guy to suggest what you need for your garden, as I am just starting out on my own. However, with respect to the bamboos, about which I know pitifully little, there are running kinds and clumping kinds. I take it by your post that you want the clumping type. I have to get a book on bamboos so I get the right plants. As for what else to plant, so far for my garden I have some azaleas, rhodos and several Japanese maples. I will be getting some bamboo, but don't know what kind yet. My good Mum gave me a pine a couple of years ago, I think a Tanyosho [is that right]. It is not doing too well, which is entirely my fault. There is a nursery down near Victoria which has bamboo, and with a little luck I hope to make the trek later next week to see what they have. They also have bonsai, so I am anticipating that someone there will have quite a bit of knowledge about what will work here. I think you may be a bit colder where you are. It is pretty moderate here as we are right on the ocean. I'll let you know if I find out anything really spectacular. Best of luck with your garden!
Thanks for replying Coco. Sounds like we're at about the same point in our gardening - thanks for the suggestions. I was going to look at azaleas and see if they would work here. I'm also thinking of adding a red dogwood depending on how large they get and their needs. Please share anything you learn about bamboo - I'll do the same if I find a garden centre around me that carries them. Good luck gardening :)
Good morning Brownthumbs: I was chatting to my good Mum late last night and apparently she has a bamboo book which she is going to give me when I go over to Nanaimo tomorrow [weather permitting!]. All the plants I have for the garden so far are sitting in pots outside, and have only just been brought over here. The only thing actually planted is the Tanyosho pine, which is not doing well. I have to find out how to treat that little guy better. Our ground here has almost no soil to speak of. The local islands have a layer about 800' deep of sandstone, and what is on top is broken sandstone type rock and whatever has accumulated over the past 10 or 12 thousand years. It isn't much. The predominant tree here is Douglas fir, the oldest of which I am aware is now about 215 years. Apparently there was a major volcanic eruption somewhere south of here just before that time - a few years maybe - and I have a theory that perhaps this small island caught fire then. There was another forest fire here just over 100 years ago, and only the biggest firs survived. Also a smaller one in 1948. Most of the firs here are suffering from root rot which I would say has generally been caused by a complete lack of attention. Evidently, at one time, there was a small native population here, perhaps well over 100 years ago, and likely quite a bit before that. The island was not broken up into lots until the latter 1960's, and there are still only 4 families living here year round. One of the property owners here now is a forester, and his job is checking on diseased trees. He explained to us how the firs get into trouble here. Unfortunately it is too late to repair the damage, as the rot travels via the tree roots from one to the other. It is now predominant over the whole island.
Hi again brownthumbs: I now have the book "the Gardener's Guide to Growing Temperate Bamboos" by Michael Bell. It is a Timber Press book, so you know it's good. Have only had a brief chance to give it a quick once over. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I hope to get down to the Peninsula Flowers nursery in Sidney. You can go on their website to see what appears to be an extensive list of bamboos. I've had a brief email chat with one of the fellows there and I will enlist his help as to which will be most suited here. From what I read in the book, the bamboos seem to be reasonably hardy, but that does not apply to all varieties. And indeed there seems to be many!! I'll let you know what I manage to come up with. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a good nursery in your area may well have the hardier varieties, as you do get rather colder than we do here in winter. The lowest temperature we have seen here in the past 11 years is -12C, and that was extremely unusual. Normally -5C would be considered very cold right here.
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=e...apanese tea garden &um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi I took inspiration for my front garden from the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. I obviously couldn't replicate it but took many elements such as form and colour and used as best I could in my garden. I have one particular photo I took of the Pagoda with a blue evergreen beside it, very striking. But very difficult to find blue evergreens in this zone that don't grow the size of blue spruces. Oh well, we try LOL.
Brownthumbs: I have been doing a bit of reading on bamboos and discovered a couple of things. In Peter Valder's book, The Garden Plants of China, he mentions that bamboos seem to have a cold tolerance range of between -15C and -21C. I spoke with Fred at Pacific Flowers nursery, where I got all my bamboos, and one of the things he pointed out to me was that while many of the bamboos grow really tall and run like crazy, they do not necessarily perform the same in our colder climate. He made a suggestion about the running bamboos. If you want them to head in a particular direction, which I do so that they will form a hedge, dig a trench - not too deep - add fertilizer and re-fill the trench. He claims that the plants will follow this line of natural attraction. I'm going to give that a try to see if it works.
Bamboos will also send most of there shoots to the south where there is more sun. If you dont want it to go somewhere, use root barrier.
Hi Coastal. I guess that makes sense. I wonder if that would mean they need full sun, or if that would be effective even in the shade. A substantial portion of my JG will get little or no direct sun.
I dont think thats the case, they just aim for light like any plant i guess. I have 2 bamboos by my front door, and probably 80% of the 25-30 new shoots are south of the center of the plant. Kinda neat. ;)
Brownthumbs: For whatever info you may need on bamboos, go to americanbamboo.org. It's all there. Lots of good stuff, how to plant, how to water, staking, etc. etc.
Fargesia nitida or Fargesia Robusta is the very controllable clumping bamboo that you would be quite happy with in SW Ontario . Pterostyrax corymbosa is a nice small oriental tree that may interest you . Happy Growing !!
I posted a longish recommendation for some bamboos, which evidently the moderator moved to a different, all-bamboo thread, which seems to be a risk here. So rather than repeating everything and incurring the same fate, I'll just echo the recommendation for Fargesia robusta -- the absolute best non-running bamboo for your situation -- and also some lower-growing varieties: Pleioblastus viridistriatus and Sasaella masamuniana 'Albo-striata.'
