h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No, I'm not going to mention splinters or anything like that. This is just to warn anyone thinking of planting bamboo that it can be quite invasive.

It's nothing like as bad as the famously aggressive Japanese Knotweed (see A1161208) but don't be afraid to give it a good pruning!

That can also be a positive, altho not for gardens. We just put in bamboo flooring, partly because it is environmentally preferred, replacing itself in just five years.

Bamboo comes in two forms, spreading and clumping, the former being the more invasive. Bamboo forests throve for a century and then mysteriously die out, leaving many acres covered in bare stalks. Bamboo sends out runners to form new plants and can crack sidewalks and driveways. Bemboo can send out runners reaching 100 ft or more, as well as readily reproducing from stem and leaf cuttings, so if your neighbor down the block plants a living bamboo fence, there's a good chance it will get into your yard.

In my experience, bamboo can be grown in two forms of containers; above ground and below ground. Above ground containers like urns should be placed on top of a slab of stone or concrete so roots can't escape through the drainage hole. Below ground containers can be likened to pre-formed plastic fish ponds. Set the lip of the container a few inches above the soil level and build up to it with stones. The goal is to plant the bamboo in the fish pond (sans fish) and prevent it from climbing out.

A good setting for bamboo is in the city, as it is pollution tolerant and can be grown in rooftop gardens or in yards where the soil is boxed in by the foundations of the surrounding buildings, such as in a courtyard. In my experience, combining bamboo with a stream can create an interesting mucroclimate beneath the dense canopy, notabley warmer in the winter (even when snowing) and cooler in the summer.

I deliberately planted bamboo to grow as a fence between me and the old cow next door. It's definitely spreading, and even in the right direction, but it's very slow.

I've got some short bamboo on the other side, and that's a bit faster, but still not taking over the garden. Both have been there for at least 5 years.

I'm not sure what a nettle is, is it like a thistle? We have lots of nasty varieties of thistles in the US.

Hi Mr C,

A nettle isn't obviously 'prickly' like a thistle. It's more like poison oak as it doesn't look sinister at all, but catches you unawares. (Luckily for us here in the UK, it has less dramatic side-effects than poison oak though!)

When you touch one, you get a burning or stinging sensation straight away, and then the skin that's been touched will come out in a red rash for a while - usually just a few hours.

Cunningly, nature has also provided a remedy. In the wild, a plant called dock often grows alongside nettles. Rubbing a dock leaf onto the area stung by the nettle is claimed to reduce the inflamation and the itching. Then again, it didn't seem to help a great deal when I was young - perhaps it was just my parents playing on my youthful gullibility...

There's a picture on the entry about nettles - A1310950

In the US, there is a similar cohabitation between poison ivy and it's medicinal counterpart, jewelweed. The jewelweed flowers, if rubbed on the area affected by the ivy oils, releave the itching and blotches.