Because the passage as the side of the house funnels wicked north easterlies straight off the top of this hill in the winter months we decided to create a natural windbreak with a trough of bamboo. Trough because this is a small courtyard and bamboo is a known thug so planting them directly into the border was never an option.
We bought some the year before last and being aghast at the price settled for pots of young bamboo. Only this year have they begun to put on any height. Not only height but mass as there are a lot of new shoots this year.
This may be down to their maturing sufficiently to get going or that we replanted them in deep troughs rather than square plastic pots.
In recent high winds they certainly caught the drafts – so much so that they were giving my poor Escallonia in the bed next to them a real thrashing.
What to do?
I grabbed a piece of plastic coated wire trellis and fixed it along the back of the pot with the aid of some canes and my shrub is no longer ‘getting stick’ from its neighbour.
This week my pal Misha gave me a clump of bamboo from her own garden and we were able to add a second trough to make a more generous windbreak across the end of the passage.
(I have just potted up a fig for her in exchange – this was a sucker (in square pot) from my main tree (large pot). It already has figlets on it.)
Hopefully, once the bamboos gain a little more height, they will cut some of the worst effects of those north winds on my pots and tubs.
Jan Edwards 