I can't see your picture either, but sixteen feet since May? Wouldn't be giant hogweed would it? It is a much hated invasive here in Western NY State. FataMorgana

Question - why aren't these propagated plants blooming. I can explain the one that is planted in my neighbors yard, and the closest pollenator is 300 feet away. But not sure about the others. Seed propagated plants should bloom - right? Lack of blooming would be associated with not enough sun or too young. It has nothing to do with how close another viburnum/pollinator is. Yes, seed propagated plants should bloom given the right sun conditions and age. The first two seem to get plenty of sun, so it might be age ... or do you have deer that might nibble the tips? Or perhaps your nursery plants are older than you think and were pruned at some point. Your seedlings just might not be old enough. Lack of fruit would be associated with either no blooms (of course) or poor pollination. Assuming you can get blooms, you should be able to get pollination if your original plants are setting fruit. The parents do still set fruit, right? You can always add other viburnums to your collection. If you get ones that bloom at the same time, that can only enhance your eventual cross pollination success. It doesn't have to be more v. dilatatum plants, other species that bloom at the same time would help. I have a V. dentatum 'Blue Muffin' and V. acerifolium that help each other set fruit.

Jagermeister, I'm in Fort Collins. We're north of you, but also slightly lower in altitude, so I think it's pretty similar as far as cold hardiness. I sympathize with your situation. Early spring 2 years ago, I bought 3 different Phylostachys 1 gallon starts from.... I think Bamboo Garden in Oregon. They are Nuda, Decora, and Yellowgroove. The first year they stayed about 3 foot tall. Last year the yellowgroove and Decora got about 5 or 6 foot tall and kind of bushy, but they lean over and are kind of weepy. So the main part is really only about 4 foot tall but kind of leaning way out and over on the sides. Actually similar in shape, character and size to my well established asparagus patch. The Nuda is still small at 3'tall x 2' wide. All three of these are supposed to get medium sized like what you're wanting, but in our zone, who knows. There are a few other bamboos in town, but I haven't seen any large ones. I'm hoping mine have some much bigger shoots this spring. My hope is that my children's plastic climbing castle will kind of get lost in the bamboo and be sort of a secret hideout for them in there. That's kind of what made me decide to give it a try. I'd visited the LA arboretum and the Huntington Library garden in LA area, and when walking through their bamboo, thought "how cool a place for kids to play". They've started to spread. I see runners coming out into the lawn from them, which seem to be about the same length outward as the canes are tall. I just mow them over. They're surrounded by house on one side, garage on another, a very dense big thicket of blue spruce on the 3rd and my lawn on the fourth. After seeing those runners, I would NOT think you would want to plant them along your fence unless you A.) you did some kind of serious barrier as is discussed in parts of this forum, or B.) convince your Neighbor to also be willing to regularly mow them down in his lawn but let them grow along the fence, or C.) if you hate your neighbor. It seems like the hard winter is not slowing these guys up at all. 2nd summer they all came right back up, and most of the existing canes got new leaves on them. This past winter the leaves stayed nice and dark green right up until that nasty cold spell just before X-mas. Since then all the leaves died and have been gradually turning the same tan color as my lawn. Most of the stems and branches still appear to be alive though. After reading up it seemed pretty unlikely any clumping varieties would survive here, so I didn't try any. However, there is one really big bamboo that's supposed to be good down to -5, and given how mine seem to be shrugging off the Colorado winter without much difficulty I'm thinking about giving one a try, just to see if it lives and if so, see how big it would get. How high is your deck? The bamboo has been fun to try. I recommend it but you may well want to go with something else to block the view of your neighbor's yard. I've got some tall hardy pampas grass and Chinese silver grass for similar purpose and I've also done some vines, Virginia creeper, trumpet vine and honeysuckle on my 6' cedar fence. They all help, but if you don't want to see the guy next door nude sunbathing, or vice versa, then you're probably going to want to think about several types of trees, and tall bushes. The blue spruce seem great for completely blocking a view but time consuming to grow and of course they do get BIG. One of my neighbors topped his when they got about 18' tall. Surprisingly they've mostly just grown fatter since he did that. They certainly COMPLETELY block his view over his back fence. If you ever get up to Fort Collins, drop me a line and you can take a look at the bamboo. Maybe it will be huge this summer. I hope so. I think there's some at the Denver botanical gardens, but I haven't seen them for years, so not sure how they're doing, or what variety. Bruce

Yay! I'll be there! Let us know any specifics on what we should bring. WHAT I PLAN TO BRING: I have a really cool fig tree that I got at another plant swap. Once I got it home and realized that I'd have to do special care for it to overwinter it, I began to doubt my enthusiasm. I'm more of a "poke-it-in-the-ground and hope-for-the-best" kind of gardener. So, I plan on bringing it. It's grown quite well in the big pot I have it in and is looking really healthy and green. I also have a lot of purple cone flowers and rudbeckia that I just don't know if I should bring or not. Anyone else who has them already has a LOT of them, I'm sure. If anyone is interested in them, please let me know...I can bring a very generous trade of either of them. I have some jack-in-the-pulpit plants that don't look all that great right now just because it's that time of year for them...they'll transplant well and will look beautiful next year. I have a few trades of them. Other things I might be able to bring: - columbine (light pink doubles) - yellow or burgundy iris - tulip tree seedlings - ginko tree seedlings - red sedum - hmmmm...I'll have to go out to look in my garden to see what else. THINGS I'D LOVE TO TRADE FOR: I am looking for a money tree plant, a quaking aspen tree/seedling, flowering bushes, another chinese lantern (patty?). I'll bring some fruit salad, too, for the covered dish lunch. Sounds like fun! See ya then!