Sacred Bamboo Nandina domestica Gulf Stream

Gulf Stream is the compact sacred bamboo, building a tight mound of fine, lacy, divided foliage on slender upright canes that clump slowly and never run. Its distinguishing feature is a full year of colour change: bronze red new growth in spring, blue green through summer, then deep red and burgundy tones as the nights cool off. It holds that mounded shape without shearing, which makes it useful as a low border, as a repeated block in a mass planting, or as a pot plant that asks for almost nothing.

Colour depends on where you put it

Part shade to full sun, and the more sun it gets the stronger the red tones run. It grows in most soils with reasonable drainage, takes frost, heat and coastal conditions, and wants regular water for the first year and only moderate water after that. For a low border, space plants so the mature mounds just touch, generally around 50 to 60 centimetres apart, and stagger a second row where you want a wider band. It also takes containers well, provided the pot is not left standing saturated, and colour in a pot often runs stronger than in the ground because the root zone stays warmer and drier.

The failure mode is deep shade. Planted on the dark side of a fence or under a dense canopy, Gulf Stream stays green all year, the canes stretch and thin, the mound loses its density, and the whole reason for choosing this cultivar disappears. It will not die there, it will simply be a duller plant. If the position is genuinely dark, put a shade plant in it and give the nandina somewhere it can see the sky.

Gulf Stream beside a photinia screen

Photinia robusta is the other red toned evergreen here and it works at a completely different scale, a head high screen needing regular clipping. Gulf Stream is the plant to run in front of it, low and self shaping. For low mass planting the closer comparison is Xanadu, which works at a similar height but wants shade, warmth and no frost, while Gulf Stream wants sun and takes cold without complaint. Pick between them on climate and aspect rather than on looks, since Gulf Stream will hold a low border in a frosty inland garden and Xanadu will not. Both sit in the low maintenance range.

Thinning canes instead of shearing

Do not run a hedge trimmer over it. Shearing cuts through the lacy leaflets, leaves brown cut ends across the whole surface and destroys the layered outline the cultivar is grown for. Instead, in late winter, cut a few of the oldest and tallest canes right down to ground level, no more than a third of them in any one year, and let new canes fill in from the base. Feed in early spring with a complete fertiliser and mulch. Gulf Stream flowers and fruits very little, which matters because nandina berries are toxic to pets and birds, and seed is how the species has escaped into bushland in parts of eastern Australia.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 6 sizes, from 140mm up to 300mm, priced from $16.95 to $88.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. These are younger plants, priced for planting in quantity, and they establish quickly once in the ground. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to low water gardens.