Help me brainstorm this barrel idea.....

I've got a coupla smaller varieties in the pond garden. variegated ones.

mr vw has the good old original green stuff growing on top of his septic system. it goes over 30 feet in a good year...

There are some tall clumping (versus running) bamboos -
this is my favorite bamboo supplier; the woman who runs it is funny and bamboo wise. http://www.endangeredspecies.com/Plants/Bamboo/bamboo.htm

The clumping Bambusa multiple var. Alphonse Karr works, or did for a friend/landscape architect, planted at ground level. It has fabulous leaf coloring. Does it grow in your area? Sunset says it's hardy down to 15 F.
15-35 feet high, can be contolled at 8 - 10 ft.
Isn't there an arboretum or japanese garden near you? sometimes those folks can be helpful.

I'm ever fond of Cupressocyparis leylandii (leyland cypress) - gets to 70 feet if let go, and it's a fast grower, but can work as a 15 foot hedge. But then it can be maintenance chore, and gets a fungus in some warm summer areas.

- There are galvanized steel containers that might work given adequate drainage holes - I dunno, since I've not played with those myself. Also not sure how they work with your local climate re summer heat.
- Maybe a raised bed - very raised - of cedar/redwood - or bricks veneering well built concrete block, with weep holes. All $$$$.
- Which brings up recycling lumber places - there are sometimes good finds at those.
- on metal containers - when we did city dump landscape design, we had some of the medium sized trash bins painted up, put in drainage, and planted them up. At this point I don't remember the paint or the drainage we set up.

No. I don't think so. My neighborhood would totally fail that test altogether.

My smallish backyard has three enormous trees, one medium sized, tree, one smallish tree and a one potted tree. It also has the remainders of three other trees that were there at some time.

Thanks, osso!

I've looked at the galvanized bins but they're not quite high enough. Plus, they cost a lot more than the barrels.

Bamboo is pretty expensive for mature plants and I'd like my money to go into the plants themselves instead of building materials. I'm thinking once they get mature they could be replanted in the ground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_rugosa

I'm looking through old photos of my backyard...



is now...



And this...



is now...



It's still all a work in progress but it's getting better!

My friend planted the clumping bamboo against her house and didn't have maintenance problems for at least several years (except for falling leaves),. I moved, so don't know since then, but - now that I see the photo, I might put a barrier along your side of the fence line - they make a lot of different kinds of root barriers - even though it's clumping and not running. Clumps will want to expand if they have room to.

Um, at one site a woman says -
We simply adore this stunning clumping bamboo that makes an 18' tall deer-resistant clump (35' in more tropical areas) of 1" diameter canes, vertically striped gold and green. We have observed slight foliage burn at 10 degrees F and some cane dieback at 8 degrees F. While we have had clumps die to the ground at 0 degrees F, they have always resprouted nicely when summer warmth arrived, although it takes a few years to recover their full size.

Big progress!!
And your dog looks rather like Katy.

Re tall trellis structures along the fence line, there is usually a city code insistent on some distance between the fence and the trellis. I'm guessing five feet here.

Look at the endangered species nursery link I gave - re transplanting a big bamboo plant. Hermine, who owns the nursery, must've written that. She is a complete kick.

I can't plant against much of the fence line -- there is an old foundation there just about 5" under the grass.

What direction would the fence be.. not sure if that made sense. K, if you're yard was a box, will it be on the north side, south?
Why must the fence be 25 ft? Do your neighbours live on hills overlooking you?

The photo I posted doesn't really do justice to how their house overlooks our backyard but it gives a general idea of what I'm talking about.

Our side of the fence faces west. The fence runs north to south.

Here's a photo taken from our guest room window that shows how unprivate things are....

Here's what the barrels look like...

Well, the alphonse karr bambusa grows to 35 feet and is controllable..

will you have to cut the tops outta them?

from the photo it would appear that way...

Yeah. They'll cut the tops off for $3 per barrel.

a bargain if you aren't set up to do it...

hell, I'm set up to do it and poor, but I think I'd pay the 3 bucks.

I think anything that grows tall enough, planted in what will end up being tight barrels, will then be hard to transplant, when you could put the plants in the ground in the first place.