Waterhousia Hedge vs Gracilis Bamboo

I currently have a 12 metre long rear fence at my house which has 2 double story houses which have windows that give views straight into our north facing backyard. I have worked out that I would need about a 4 metre high screen to block their windows.

Firstly i'll say that I would like to try to keep the yard looking somewhat tropical, with cycas, agaves, yucca's etc.

I had previously decided that bamboo would be the way to go, I looked up appropriate options and liked the look of the gracilis bamboo. I went down to the bamboo nursery but couldn't go through with it. When I looked around I saw bamboo that had been grown for several years and it was almost intimidating seeing how many shoots had come up from the ground and how large the thing got. I couldn't help but think 12 metres of that would be just too much to handle.

I then went down the street and saw Waterhousia floribunda (weeping lilly pilly) in pots. It looked quite nice with the light green new foliage and weeping leaves. The lady at the nursery said they make great screens and can easily be maintained to 4 metres in height as a hedge. I went home and tried to find out as much as I could about these plants. One concerning thing I saw is that they can grow into huge trees and also I couldn't find many pictures of these being hedged into a medium sized hedge.

I would like to hear from people who have experience with these plants or if there are any other options that I should consider. My yard will only be about 6 metres deep once our extensions are done so I if either of these options are going to be too hard to keep to an acceptable size, it would be good to know now rather than later.

A couple of other questions I have are:

With the gracilis, would using a root barrier to confine the clump to a width of say 50-60cm make the bamboo more manageable in terms the clump growing to 1 metre by 50cm rather than 1 metre by 1 metre.

With the waterhousia, has anyone hedged these? do you have some photos and are they easy to prune and keep to 4 metres?

As mentioned, I am open to other suggestions also. I did have a look at alphonse karr bamboo which grows to a height closer to what I actually want but the thing that concerned me with them is that they don't seem to grow very straight and may end up hanging over the neighbours yards and looked a little messy.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can give me some guidance.

Michael

Firstly the waterhousia will not get anywhere near the specfied height when planted as a hedge. They will compete with each other reducing their overall height. As was explained to you you can maintain a hedge to any height/width you want provided you are prepared to maintain it (ie clipping). Clumping bamboos are again fine as long as you are prepared to reduce the clump size annually even 6 monthly. Thats not real easy work, but do it often and its easier. The thing to remember about bamboo is it prefers some shade (and amble water), without it the leaves can become scorched and they will shed leaves heavily making them messy. Both will work, but the thought of clipping a 4 metre wayerhousia hedge is daunting to say the least.

I think gracilis is the right choice here.

An easy way of managing the clumps is to simply snap of the unwanted new shoots each year. Bamboos have one flush of new culms a year, generally late summer. Snap these off at ground level when they are young and tender (say under 1 foot) and leave one or two each year to replace any old culms that will die off.

I have seen a lilly pilly that has hedged very well approx. 1 m wide and 3 m high, and I doubt you well get more than 3 m out of one.
DO NOT plant bamboo in the ground. It WILL spreadand become a problem for you and your neighbours, even with the barriers. I think you could achieve what you want with bamboo, if planted in pots with separating and re potting to create more, every few years.....

Thanks for the replies all.

OnlineGardenerAU, that doesn't sound so bad. If I can break off the new shoots to keep the clump at a size then that would be fine.

Zub, the lilly pilly variety that I am looking at is a waterhousia. Are you referring to a waterhousia or another type of lilly pilly as there are quite a few types that grow to various heights. In regards to bamboo, clumping bamboo is not supposed to spread any further than its clump size which for a gracilis is about 1 metre x 1 metre. I also intend on putting down a root barrier along the fence just to be safe aswell.

BeatrixKiddo, yes I have seen large waterhousia's and I can imagine they could be quite a lot of work to keep once they are a decent size.

Gorey,I too was told clumping bamboo ónly spreads to bla bla bla', however I have personally seen this proven wrong on many occasions. I have even seen it go beyond inground barriers....so my advise re bamboo in pots only still stands. In regard to the lily pilly I am not sure re the variety but it was planted over 50 years ago. I have also seen many varieties fully grown, but none that exceed 3 m in the screening varieties.

I find that where ever Bamboo's are grown in nurseries, rats populate the area. The bamboos make sooooo much mess. rats use the leaves that drop to make their nests. We remove the batches of bamboo's and rat problem gone.