Here you will find a general guide to what species might suit your purpose. You will perhaps also learn more just how versatile and varied bamboos are.

This is NOT a substitute for getting individual advice. It is a guide intended to give you an idea of which bamboo might be best for you, your purpose and location. We have 20 years of experience and grow more than 250 different species here at Belli Bamboo Parklands.

Shortcuts to some common uses of bamboo plants:
Screening
Fencing
Edible shoots
Timber
Nursery/Garden stakes

 

There are many factors to consider when choosing a bamboo plant.

What do you want from it?

• A beautiful ornamental bamboo
• Bamboo with dense foliage for screening
• Food from the shoots
• An inpenetrable barrier for fencing - some bamboos are dense and even have spikes, others are just dense forming a strong and beautiful "wall"
• A thick walled bamboo for timber
• A strong bamboo for building
• Nursery stakes for your plantings
• Or maybe another use - ask us for the most suitable species for your purpose.

What size?

• We have bamboos from 15 cm high up to 36 m
• Culm diameters from 0.2 cm to 20 cm
  Have a look in our pricelist to see dimensions

How would you like it to look?

• Green, Yellow, Black or striped - how striped?
• Powdery white surface (ghost), silky or hard and smooth?
• Small leafs, huge leafs, pointy leafs or leaf clusters?
• With branches?
• How dense a foliage and do you want it to be throughout or only the top?
• With plain nodes or distinctively coloured nodes?
• Perhaps even a Buddha Belly bamboo with rounded internodes?

Where do you want to grow it?

• Does it need to be frost tolerant and for how low a temperature?
  We have bamboos that can tolerate down to minus 10-15 degrees. Bamboos are not only for warm climates.
• What kind of soil do you have?
• Does it need to be particularly drought tolerant?
  Bambusa oldhamii could be your choice then if it suits your use.
• How much room will it have and how much space do you want it to fill?
  Anything from a pot plant to a forest is available.

Screening
If it is for screening then you most likely want a bamboo with dense foliage down to the ground.
Up to about 3 m high Bambusa Heterostachya Variegata, "Variegated Malay Dwarf", 3 m x 4 cm diameter could be a good choice.
If the screen needs to be higher, then Bambusa Textilis Gracilis, "Slender Weaver's Bamboo", 6 m high x 5 cm diameter can be what you need.

Fencing
Your choice may depend on the degree and size of fencing you need.
Completely inpenetrable, thick spiky: Bambusa Arundinacea
Dense, no spikes: Bambusa Multiplex, Bambusa Tuldoides, Bambusa Textilis
Decorative and screening fence: Bambusa Textilis Gracilis, Bambusa Oldhamii

Edible shoots
This of course is to taste - yours or your customers. Some popular choices are: Bambusa Latiflorus and Bambusa Oldhamii

Timber
Your choice here may be based on volume of timber fibre (thickness of walls), strength of the pole (Dendrocalamus Strictus) or the dimension of poles you need. Ask us for further assistance.

Nursery/Garden stakes
Depending on the stake diameter you are after there are a number of good choices:
6-10mm: Bambusa Multiplex Willowy, Bambusa Multiplex Stripe Stem Fernleaf or Bambusa Multiplex Riviereorum
10-20mm: Bambusa Multiplex, Bambusa Multiplex Alphonse Karr or Bambusa Boniopsis
20-30mm: Bambusa Multiplex Cream Stripe
30-40mm: Bambusa Heterostachya, Bambusa Textilis, Dendrocalamus Strictus, Bambusa Tuldoides, Bambusa Eutuldoides or Bambusa Pervariabilis.

Please enter common or botanical names below to get a list of references and fact sheets.
You can also search the entire Bamboo Australia web site by following this link.