{"product_id":"malay-dwarf-bamboo-bambusa-heterostachya","title":"Malay Dwarf Bamboo - Bambusa heterostachya","description":"\u003cp\u003eMalay dwarf bamboo is a bamboo you can treat like a hedge. Most clumping bamboos are left to arch and sway, but Bambusa heterostachya makes a tight, upright thicket of slim green culms with leaf carried close to the ground, and it takes a trimmer along its face without sulking. That makes it a different tool from the tall screening bamboos. You can hold it as a clipped green wall a good way above fence height, in a bed under a metre wide, provided you keep taking out the outer culms as the clump creeps wider.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name oversells the dwarf part. Left alone it is a mid height bamboo, comfortably taller than a paling fence and a long way short of the timber species, and its culms lean outward under the weight of a wet summer's growth. Trimming is what keeps it compact, and the fact that it responds to trimming is the reason to choose it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eHeight is controlled one culm at a time\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eBamboo does not grow like a shrub. Each new culm shoots to its full height within a single season, through the warm wet months, and after that it never gets taller; what it adds later is branches and leaf. Cut the top off a culm and that culm stops for good, then branches more thickly below the cut. So a Malay dwarf hedge is managed in two moves. Once the summer shoots have stopped extending and dropped their sheaths, usually by early autumn, take them down to the line of the rest of the hedge. Then trim the face lightly once or twice through the growing season to keep it dense. Wait for the new culms to firm up first, because a shoot cut while it is still soft can die back well below the cut.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt suits warm coastal and subtropical gardens from Sydney north. A light frost does little harm, but cold inland winters burn the leaf and stall growth. Full sun gives the densest face; part shade is fine, though the shaded side of a hedge always runs thinner. Water deeply through summer, when the new culms are forming, and ease off once the weather cools.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eWhere it goes wrong\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a bed under a metre wide the trouble starts at the edges: each summer's new culms come up on the outside of the clump, and within a few years they are pressing into fence footings and path edges. Snap or cut the outermost new shoots off at ground level as they appear, or set a root barrier along the hard edge at planting time. Keep it clear of pool coping and buried pipes too, because the root mass is dense, fibrous and right at the surface. Clipping does not stop the leaf fall, and a trimmed face drops old leaf onto whatever is below it, so keep the hedge back from a pool edge or a box gutter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive it a nitrogen heavy feed as spring growth starts and a second one in midsummer, and keep a coarse mulch over the root zone. Fallen leaf can stay where it lands as part of that mulch. Culms that have gone grey and leafless are finished, so saw them out at the base in late winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eChoosing between the screening bamboos\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf you want leaf colour rather than plain green, \u003ca href=\"\/products\/verigated-malay-dwarf-bamboo-bambusa-heterostachya-variegated\"\u003eBambusa heterostachya Variegated\u003c\/a\u003e has the same habit with cream striped leaves, but it is slower and less dense, so it suits an accent rather than a long run. For more height on a similar footprint, \u003ca href=\"\/products\/slender-weavers-bamboo-bambusa-textilis-gracilis\"\u003eSlender Weavers Bamboo\u003c\/a\u003e goes taller and finer, though it carries its foliage higher and screens a first floor window better than it screens the top of a fence. Of the three, Malay dwarf is the fullest to the ground and the one to pick when the screen has to look trimmed. For a narrow side passage, read \u003ca href=\"\/blogs\/news\/screening-plants-for-narrow-spaces\"\u003escreening a narrow space\u003c\/a\u003e before you dig, and compare the other \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/privacy-screening\"\u003ePrivacy \u0026amp; Screening Plants\u003c\/a\u003e for that spot.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3 class=\"pd-size-guidance\"\u003eChoosing a size\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis plant is available in 3 sizes, from 300mm up to 500mm, priced from $179.00 to $339.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Every size here is established stock rather than a starter plant, so this line is intended for immediate effect rather than for growing on. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to \u003ca href=\"\/blogs\/news\/fast-growing-privacy-screen-plants-australia\"\u003efast growing screening plants\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plant Drop","offers":[{"title":"300mm","offer_id":67671253287281,"sku":null,"price":179.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true},{"title":"400mm","offer_id":67671253320049,"sku":null,"price":229.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true},{"title":"500mm","offer_id":67671253352817,"sku":null,"price":339.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1017\/1049\/6113\/files\/malay-dwarf-bamboo-bambusa-heterostachya.jpg?v=1791519589","url":"https:\/\/plantdrop.com.au\/products\/malay-dwarf-bamboo-bambusa-heterostachya","provider":"Plant Drop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}