I did a little guerrilla gardening last weekend; ripping out dessicated fern fronds, blackberry brambles and excessive quantities of Oregon grape. I barely made a dint. Though only a quarter acre, the bio-mass surrounding our little place is astonishing.
Behind us are some very old and parlous alders and birches that will have to come out this year. Beyond them, a half-dozen old firs and cedars tower on the hill side. A thorny thicket worthy of a frightening children’s tale separates us from neighbours to the West.
But it is clear that some years ago, someone loved this garden. They laid out these meandering paths, carefully interspersed flowering shrubs and perennials, built the now-derelict bench positioned in a quiet corner with a view of the sea, and trussed up as-yet-unidentified ornamental trees to contort their limbs into the spectacular shapes I now admire.
This is the sort of garden, I flatter myself, that I can work with. I don’t have much artistic vision, but I have lots of energy for trimming and tidying, and I can see that with some hard work, this garden can be beautiful again. Warmly dressed, with my ratchet clippers holstered on my hip and a shiny red Lee Valley tote tub waiting to be filled, I can imagine this garden’s summer offerings; the warm, damp-earth smells of morning, the cool relief of late afternoon shady corners.
One of the plants I am able to identify in the garden is bamboo. My first thought when I saw it was “That will have to go.”
Bamboo, after all, is invasive. That can’t be good. And it was occupying a spot where I fancied a clematis.
But now it is my bamboo, and I am feeling a bit protective of it. I have done a bit of reading on the Bamboo World website (http://www.bambooworld.com/index.html) and discovered that there are two kinds of bamboo: Running and Clumping. Each cane is called a ‘culm’ and you can cut them off at any height and that culm will never grow taller, though it may live 10 years.
It appears that we have at least two species, and I am reasonably certain that one of them is a clumping variety called “Gold Stem.” One clump is growing out of a purpose built grate in the deck, while two others bracket a pathway just behind. At the moment, these are shedding leaves and much of the remaining foliage is brown at the ends and a bit raggedy-looking. The other variety is green and healthy looking, but may be a running variant, in which case I am still inclined to remove it. Have a look at the pictures and do please let me know if you can confidently identify either type, or have some thoughts or advice on the subject of bamboo.