bambooweb.info

I dug a pond last summer with my excavator and chucked the dirt into a berm about 9' tall or so behind the pond. The pond is about 30x50' approx.and is stocked with fish now. The soil in the berm is fairly loamy sandy stuff. I put in a 1 gallon yellow groove and a bissetti last summer and they got pretty toasted/top killed this winter but have come back to about the size they were last summer. I added one more YG and Bissetii and a river birch today to see who does well at this site. I will be pumping water from my pond with poly pipe to water them during the summer. They'll also get cow and chicken manure once it isn't too hot and has broken down some. This winter I may do that old "Steve Lau" (does he still post here) and tarp the crap out of them for the first year or two. I'm USDA zone 6A but I'm skeptical they will flourish here given our fairly chilly northern winters here in North Idaho. Also I will cage them to keep the deer and and elk and moose and my rambunctious horned cattle from destroying them. The goal is a berm exploding with Boo but I'm thinking it may take 125 years here for that to happen. Will post updates for anyone who wants to see if it gets crushed or does ok.

a few more photos...

A worthy experiment! I bet the cows will want to snack on it so the cages will surely be required! I've read multiple times that bamboo planted in berms like that tends to do very well. Good luck!

Thank you, that gives me some hope. The berm is so fluffy/sandy I'd think that if the rhizomes can ever get traveling they will have a field day. We shall see! Thanks Brad.

I do most of my commercial plantings in some kind of berm, plus the massive one I have planted between me and the main road. The only tick is to make a trough in center of berm and put bamboo in it, so it can easily watered, and it looks like you have that covered.