I grow bamboo in pots - saw some on a garden tour where the owner had built a long trough out of wood, the bamboo filled it completely and she had it on rollers to position to block the afternoon sun as it moved. Said she'd had it for years and years. You can keep bamboo in pots for quite a few years and it is lovely. Every so many years you may have to knock it out of the pot, divide and replant but you have to do that with many plants. The larger problem for me is that the pots blow over in the wind (I like the tall bamboo). Too shallow of a pot and, in wind, your bamboo may just uproot itself out. To not have the tall bamboo topple out of the pot on it's own - I'd say your planter should be at least as deep as a 5 gallon pot. Again. if not subject to wind - shallower would be fine. To keep tall things in pots when I replant them and they don't yet have enough roots to hang in there themselves - I just lay a brick right up around the trunk all the way around (3 bricks usually). To get them to grow fast, use nitrogen fertilizer (like a grass feeder), to slow them down once your pot is filling out go *really* slow on fertilizer. You can find pics on the web of bamboo breaking out of pots - I'd guess all of those are 5 years old or much more - the home gardener can simply divide the plant to have this not happen. There are always takers for free bamboo. I do grow mostly clumpers with the exception of black bamboo which is a runner. I keep a cement paving stone under each pot and just once/year do a thorough check around the bottom of the pots to be sure the bamboo hasn't escaped into the ground (the paver raises it enough to be easy to visually see any roots growing out the bottom). As mentioned - other plant's depth all depends on the plant - catctus in troughs only need inches, fast growers or things you want to get big may need a 15 gallon pot size. Be SURE to thoroughly rinse/soak your new tufa pots as cement itself is too limey and will kill plants if you don't leach it for a bit before planting. Good Luck.

Stick with evergreens.....and leave the perennial plants out of the picture. This planting area reflects directly on the look of the face of your house....which, right now, is rather blank. Michigan is, more or less, zone 6....but zone 5 is not out of the possibility of plant hardiness. You might wish to break the green line---if you plant nothing but evergreens but keep it soft....don't use plants that show their demise early in their lifespan. Clematis is a very nice vine to grow up a trellis.....but it is a rather short lived perennial of color......keep such vine away from the entrance of the home. The color of your entrance door, roof, and garage door, can often influence what color of perennials you choose for plantings near the front of the house. For evergreen hedge material I suggest 'yew'...for its many forms, soft needles, and easy maintenance. The planter in front of the large picture window could take such yew hedge....it can be kept low so as to not interfere with the window. On either end, a pyramid yew could be used as a sentinel plant to raise the look near the corners and the entrance door. If not yew, then consider 'box' evegreem plants which also can be kept very low and they look great with minimal clipping. I do agree though, the small space does offer problems of keeping sufficient soil there in a moist condition. Make the soil there a fairly even mix of compost and good triple mix. If the area here is kept to a pH level for evergreen plantings, it can keep the maintenance of the plot fairly simple. Evergreens are not water hungry plants....so there would be no need to water often. They should be watered well into the winter months to keep their roots alive through a cold winter. A yearly feeding of a high nitrogen fertilizer is all the food they require.

Hi madhatten that is a cool plant and you should have no problem with it reaching 2" dia or up to 30 feet. It will probably take up to 6-7 years to do this with good growing conditions. Bamboo comes out of the ground the diameter it will be when it is full grown. It grows to its full height in 8-10 weeks. It will never grow taller or bigger diameter. Taller and larger diameter growth will come in subsequent years as rhizomes develope and are able to support the larger growth. I attended a growers conference awhile back. A question as to how much room do you really need for best growth and development was asked of a large scale bamboo grower in the SE US. His answer was that the rule was that if you had a bamboo that wanted to be 30 feet tall, you would need 60 feet of room for it's spread. If the plant was to top out at twenty feet, you would want to have 40 feet. This is why people run into problems when they plant it in a small space and walk way from it for twenty year. You can't put a barrier in the ground and expect it to be a forever solution! Concrete and rebar are your best bet for a narrow installation! Bamboo grows wood faster than trees! It's a great plant in the right place. Bend over and do the work pruning the rhizomes and you won't have problems

I am attempting to grow asparagus in a pot. So far so good but they're still young. I bought a six pack of plants (not sure how old they were - probably 1 year olds?) and then put them in a large pot but they quickly out grew the pot and roots were peeping out of the bottom within a few months. I repotted them and they seem to be doing well. The new asparagus are getting thicker too. I would love to see any other peoples experience with this too. I have looked around online and haven't seem much at all. Everyone advises against trying it...well, here is my experiment ;) Here is a link that might be useful: click here to my CONTAINER ASPARAGUS experiment