Bamboo can be added to any garden and due to its fast growth, it can grow quickly to add height to your borders for use as a privacy hedge. Whether you choose a clump forming or running type of bamboo, there are plenty of varieties that grow fast within the UK climate. They are also very versatile and easy to plant wherever they are required in the garden.
If you want to learn more regarding how to plant bamboo, we wrote an in-depth guide with photos showing the bamboo being planted in our own garden. The same bamboo that was planted is also used within the case study below showing the results of the fast growth within the UK climate.
How Fast Does Bamboo Grow?
The speed at which bamboo grows is dependent upon the variety that you choose, how it was planted and a number of other factors. However, as an approximation, the running variety of bamboo can grow anywhere between 80 to 140 cm each year whereas the clumping forming bamboo can grow 30 to 60 cm each year.
Compared with other types of plants, this type of growth per year shows how fast bamboo can grow and it’s the reason why its so popular. Therefore, if you need to create hedging/screening fast, bamboo is certainly the best method.
Bamboo Growth Case Study
After planting bamboo in our garden, we decided to track how fast it grows by taking photos on a weekly basis. As you can see from the below photos, in just six weeks, it has grown extremely fast in such a short space of time.
We would approximate that in just six weeks, it has grown from as little as 20 cm tall to 250 cm, which is incredible. This is far greater than the “average annual growth” but now that it has reached such a height, the growth will begin to slow down. Below are six photos that are taken a week apart to show how fast bamboo grows.
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6Growth Analysis
As you can see from the weekly photos of the bamboo growth, it certainly grows fast. It’s worth pointing out that it wasn’t just a single bamboo shoot that grew this fast because multiple did out of the 12 initial bamboo’s that were planted. The growth from week 4 to week 5 was very fast and during this period, there was a mixture of rain and sun, which helped.
Our plan is for the bamboo to provide plenty of privacy at the back of our gardening and at this rate, it should do this in just a couple of years. Once it has grown into a lush green hedge, we will report back to this article and update on the bamboo’s growth with plenty of photos.
Conclusion
As long as you’ve plant bamboo correctly, it’s an excellent plant that’s ideal for creating fast screening. The speed to which is grows is impressive to watch and track and hopefully in a few years we will have a fully grown hedge of bamboo.
The only drawback that we’ve seen from planting bamboo is where people have planted the running variety of bamboo incorrectly. Failing to install a root barrier can cause it to spread throughout your garden and become a nuisance. Therefore, if you have never planted it before, do some research on how to plant it (we have a great guide!) beforehand.
