I would be VERY leery of using black bamboo - I think you'll want to check out the thread below discussing this. More proof that depending upon what salespeople tell you is just not the most reliable information, unfortunately. It seems to me that the biggest lack of privacy is at the corner, where the side yard widens into your backyard. I assume you use your side yard like most people do - it's a passageway, not a destination? That looks like a gate at the end of your photo. In that case, access and not interfering with the house drainage are the really critical aspects of landscaping the side. What if you created an angled bed that contained a couple of strategically placed small trees? The bed can segue into a long narrow bed against the fence (warning: you'll need something to form a soil barrier to prevent the fenceboards from rotting) for some nice colorful plantings to break up the "march of wooden fenceboards" look (I have the same problem, as you can see from our photos). Here's what I mean about the angled planting bed. Place the trees correctly, and they should interrupt the neighbor's sightlines and give both of you some visual privacy without seeming rude. For the side yard, yours seems a bit narrower than mine, so imagine just the concrete path and the planting area on the right, which is only 12" total - you should be able to make yours about 18". We started off with this: And ended up with this 3 yrs later: Our zone 9 is very different than other regions so I won't suggest plants outside of cannas. I've had excellent luck using shrubs trained as standards, though - they're faster growing than trees, and often provide beautiful flowers as well. Here is a link that might be useful: Black Bamboo: clumping or running?

**This post is a follow-up to my original post back from 2009 with the images back inside the dialog. My intent is to put all my original responses in this one reply so you can see how my growing season went from start to finish in this one reply. I won't paste EVERY reply I made, but I'll put in what gives the most complete picture on how I grew my onions. It may seem a bit choppy at times, but in some of my responses I was replying to others comments. You'll get the gist of what I did, mistakes and all. ~Catherine _________________________________________________________ Wed, Mar 4, 09 Hello everyone!! I thought I would share with all of you some progress pictures of my onions. I can't find too many pictures of baby onions, so I thought I would share some of my pictures. This is my first year growing onions of any kind. This will be my second year having a vegetable garden. So please keep this in mind. I'm a newbie and I'm just learning. Because I had no experience with growing onions, I wanted to start out with the cheapest method possible...seeds. I planted Copra onion seeds starting on January 15th (kind of early, I know). I was REAL anal when seeding them. I planted them in 3 rows, 1" apart; 2 seeds per 1/4th inch, using tweezers. I thinned them out as they came up. I seeded the onion seeds over 5 days. Here is a picture of them at about 5 to 10 days old: I planted them in Miracle-Gro potting mix. Looking back on it now, I should have used a seed starting mix or something much less dense. Over the next weeks, as they grew tall, I would trim them to 3". They also would really lean toward the window/light. I would turn them, but still they would really lean. So, I put some reflective bubble wrap I had left over from an attic project around the onions. This helped the leaning issue tremendously! At about 4 weeks old, I noticed they were looking really sad soon after I had really watered them. A day or so passed and they were still looking bad, so I decided to sprinkle some bone meal on them, and water them AGAIN real good. That was a mistake (I hadnât realized the original problem was from over watering). Those onions started smelling really bad and they looked all deflated and yellow. I thought for sure they were goners! Hereâs the picture: After several days of drying out, they started to come back. Whew! They did lose their second leaf, but at least they werenât dead. Here is a picture of my onions today at about 7 weeks old. I'll try to keep this post updated with my progress or failure of my onions. I'm hopeful :o) Garden on everyone! Catherine _________________________________________________________ Mar 4, 09 at 23:01 I didn't use any bottom heat. The room temperature was/is about 72 degrees on cloudy days and probably closer to 75 degrees on sunny days (this window is my bedroom, so I keep this room comfortable). I'm not sure what conditions were present when the seeds were coming up (less sunny I'm sure...it was in the middle of January in PA...lol). I did use a clear plastic dome to retain good humidity. I used pre-dampened soil and I'm pretty sure I didn't water the seeds after planting. I thought there was enough moisture from the damp soil to activate the seeds. I purchased my seeds from Johnnyseeds.com. I bought the pack with over 1000 seeds and planted them all. I think the germination rate on the pack said 75%. I got at least that much if not closer to 90%. I'm sorry your germination rate was so low. That would truly be disappointing. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Mon, Mar 9, 09 ...... I think I planted mine a tad deeper than a 1/4th of an inch. I put some masking tape on the tweezers I used to mark the depth so all my seeds were at the same depth. Most germinated at about day 5. Some came up a bit later, but not more then a day or so later. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Fri, Mar 13, 09 In the past few days, Iâve noticed my onions were getting a bit pale. Some of the leaves were really pale and dying off. They were a bit dry, so I watered them. This didnât improve the color at all. I waited until they needed watering again but this time I added Miracle-Gro to the water. I hope this improves the color of the leaves and stops the die off of the leaves. Most of the plants have 2-3 leaves. I think they should have more by now (they are 1.5 months old). They would have more if the leaves would stop dying off (my fault, I realize). I have been holding off on adding any fertilizer because I used Miracle-Gro potting soil with fertilizer in it. It says on the bag it should feed the plants for up to 3 months. Well, apparently not so with my onions. I did test the Miracle-Gro soil and the ph was a bit high at 8 (optimum for onions is 6 - 6.5). But the potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus were in the medium level range (comparing with the color charts provided with the soil kit). They have grown quite a bit taller in the past week. Maybe thicker, but they are still thin (still normal and okay I think). Looking back I should have added some fertilizer in their water 2 weeks ago at least. In the next few days itâs supposed to be real sunny, so that should help them out also. I plan on getting a fluorescent light today. This Sunday I start sewing lots of different plants. The light will be nice to have and I wonât have to be too worried about them not getting enough light. The one thing I've really noticed about growing from seed, is how emotionally involved I am with these plants. I get a bit sad when they look sick and excited when they do well. How pathetic is that! I don't remember feeling this way when I would buy plants from the gardening center. Thatâs it for now! Catherine _________________________________________________________ Tue, Mar 17, 09 I did go out and get 2, 4â shop lights. I emptied a shelving unit I had in the basement and put it by the window with the lights. I turn the lights on in the evening when itâs starts to get dark and on cloudy days. Here is a picture of my onions. They are now 8 weeks old. They donât look too bad. I did cut away any dying leaves. They are maybe the thickness of toothpicks. In this picture the leaves are about 6" tall. I do cut them back to 3-4", which I did right after this photo was taken. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Fri, Mar 27, 09 My onions are now 10 weeks old...WHA-WHO!! I have been trimming them to 3" at least twice a week now. I think I'll start keeping them at 5".....3" seems too short now. The base where the leaves come out of the plant is higher than it used to be. They grow about a 1/2 inch a day! Go onions go! I water them with Miracle-Gro once a week. Here are some pictures: Some onions have 4 green leaves and some have 2. Here is one with 3. I think they've had about 5 to 6 leaves total, but they die off over time. I think it might be normal. I hope it is, anyway. I hope everyone else's onions are doing well! Catherine _________________________________________________________ Sun, Apr 26, 09 I finally planted my onions today! Iâm glad I donât need to "baby-sit" them anymore. Here is a picture of some of them before I planted them out. They are over 3 months old now. Here is a picture of them all planted. There are about 350-370 onions. I forgot to count them after I covered them with the row cover. I was just tired and glad to be done. It looks like I murdered all the onions!! I sure hope they spunk back up. I think next year Iâll try using those 280 plug trays. That might help with the transplant shock. Separating the onion roots was surprisingly easy, but I did notice lots of extra roots left in the dirt in the pots. I was trying to be careful. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Mon, Apr 27, 09 It was really warm here when I planted my onions. It was also very windy. The temp. was in the 80's, I think. Cool and calm would have been perfect. If these onions don't recover, I'll know it's worth waiting for a perfect day to plant. I did water them as I was planting. I was really careful with that, because I have lost plants (once) for not being careful about keeping the roots wet at all times. I was being careful, but it was really windy and they could have gotten some damage (let's hope not!). It's always windy here, so I couldn't just wait for the wind to die down. I've given up on trying to grow anything on a trellis. They ALWAYS blow off or get damaged. I have been keeping an eye on my onions and so far they look okay. I watered them today also. They haven't really spunked up yet, but the new leaves on the onions are pointed up. The older leaves are still down, but not limp. I know my onions were used to growing next to each other and they didn't need to support themselves. I'm hoping that they are just adjusting to their new environment. The next nice day, I'll see if I can't straighten them up by watering them and pushing around the dirt a bit. We're in for some rain so it might be a few days. I'll take some pictures too. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Sat, May 16, 09 I bought my seeds from Johnny's Selected Seeds. I finally got around to taking my camera out to the garden. My onions have recovered nicely. It did take a week though. I lost 5 plants...maybe they were buried too deep or some fertilizer burn. I shouldn't have sprinkled that little bit of fertilizer on the dirt before planting. I ran out of bone meal, so I thought, why not? I will not do that again! However, the plants are 3 weeks now in the ground and most have doubled in size. Here is an average sized onion plant. _________________________________________________________ Sat, May 16, 09 I thought I would post an update picture on all my onions. About the beginging of June, I removed the row cover from my onions because the leaves were really getting bent and I didn't figure that was a good thing. Most of the leaves are still bent, but are still green, so I assume all is well. Have a happy summer everyone! Catherine _________________________________________________________ Fri, Jun 26, 09 I'm not an experienced onion grower, but from growing onions now, I think a yellowing/dying leaf here and there is completely normal. My onions have been losing a leaf every now and again since the beginning. I don't think it's normal to have lots of onions with lots of dying leaves though. If it's just one per onion, I think that's normal. I went out and took a picture of the bottom of my onions. I usually pull off the dead leaves to keep things looking neat, but I did find some I haven't pulled off yet. Hope that helped Good luck! Catherine _________________________________________________________ Jul 1, 09 at 11:35 I guess I haven't mentioned that I do add fertilizer. I have been adding ammonium sulfate every 18 days since the beginning. The first time I added it was 2 weeks after planting them in the ground. I really think that is why they are doing so well. We've also had a lot of rain, but not too much (yet...). I don't know if planting my seed so early was the best thing to do. I was kind of thinking I might start next year around Feb. 15th (not Jan. 15th like this year). I don't know....maybe Jan 15 was fine. I guess I'll wait and see how this crop turns out before I make any decisions for next year. I will plant them further apart next year. Every 4" isn't enough room. Every 6" would have been better. All of the onions on the edges are growing at an angle. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Jul 1, 09 at 13:42 Well, from what I've read, onions are heavy feeders and do benefit from heavy fertilization. The bigger the leaves = the bigger the bulb. Iâm following the advice giving on the Dixondale FAQ page regarding when/how to fertilize. They are experts at growing onions, so I figured I couldnât go wrong with following their advice. The article mentions to fertilize "every 2 to 3 weeks".18 days is just a number I decided on that was between 2 to 3 weeks. â¦.. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Sun, Jul 26, 09 Itâs been a little over a month since my last onion update. Here is a picture of what they look like now. It has been a very wet and cool/cold summer here in PA. A couple weeks ago I noticed some of the onion leaves were getting a gray fuzzy mold growing on them. To try to control the spread of the mold, I removed all the leaves with any mold on them. During that first week, the mold seemed to stay on just those first few rows of onions. Here is a picture of the mold. For the past 5 days weâve had nothing but rain and more cool temperatures. There was finally a break in the rain yesterday and I noticed the gray mold on my onion leaves was much worse. I sprayed them with some fungicide (neem oil), but today they look no better. Maybe theyâll look better with some time, but Iâm doubtful. The mold has spread to about half of my onion plants and much more of the leaves are infected. The leaves are soft and falling on top of each other, which makes the situation worse. Here is a picture of the infected leaves circled in red. I am unsure on how to proceed. I canât just remove all the leaves that are affected, itâs way too extensive. I hate to pull all infected plants, because that would be half of my entire crop. I donât want this mold to affect the bulb. It would be okay if my bulbs stop getting bigger. They look pretty good right now for the most part (except the onions in the center are smaller due to being planted too close together). Iâll change that for next year for sure). I did pull one infected plant to see if the bulb was okay. The bulb was fine (whew!). If anyone has any experience with molding onions leaves, please share. If I get no advice, Iâll probably just wait and see and hope for some sun. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Mon, Jul 27, 09 I did some more reading after I posted. What I have on the leaves is powdery mildew (did I say that before?). I read that this type of fungus will not usually kill the plant, but will create a poor quality bulb, which will get spongy in storage. So SAD! Everywhere I read, it said the infected plants should be culled. Once the plants are infected itâs very difficult to get rid of it and it will just spread to other plants. So, unfortunately, that's what I did. I pulled any onion that had any fuzz on it. I would say half had the mold. I spent all day chopping them up and putting them in my freezer. I'm hoping to finish that job tomorrow. I hated pulling all those onions but I didnât want them to just rot away in the garden or in storage. The bulbs I did cut up where in great shape. Iâve used lots of frozen onions in the past and I think they are fine. I would just have wished I could have stored them the normal way! The bulbs were in such great shapeâ¦it seemed such a shame to just chop them up. It was a hard decision! I did know I had to pull the plants. The fungus was moving and infected other plants. I donât have a picture of the remaining onions in the garden. They are falling over because they used each other to support themselves. They arenât BENT over just leaning quite a bit. If they start getting yellow, Iâll knock them over. I sprayed the remaining onions with neem oil. I know it's been really wet and cold but I do blame myself for this problem. I planted these plants WAY too close. They are planted where I did have some powdery mildew problems last year (I didn't realize it could infect plants the following year). AND I should have pulled the onions as soon as I saw any fuzz. I would have lost a lot less. A LOT less.... Hindsight is 20/20 :o( My onions are copra. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Thu, Mar 25, 10 Okay...I started this thread over a year ago and this is my last update (probably!) on my onions. (I was happy to see this post revived!) I let those onions sit in my garage for about 6 weeks. It was real obvious when they were dry enough...no more green was visible. I braided them into ropes and stored them in my unheated, yet insulated garage all winter. It gets really cold in there but it doesn't freeze. This was not optimal, but it's what I have. This worked REALLY well. I lost maybe 10 to rot out of all those onions. By mid-March it was getting too warm in the garage and I put the rest of my onions in the fridge. I think I waited a week or so longer than I should have (note to self). Some of the onions were starting to sprout...not too many though. I still have plenty to last through till August (though I doubt they will survive that long...they were not stored perfectly). So, there it is :o) Catherine and just saying....I did start up my onions this year in a 1/2 inch plug tray for ease of transplanting...BIG MISTAKE. Those things dried out so fast and it was so easy to over water. UGH! I killed half of them. I transplanted the survivors to my "old" planting containers and they are doing much better. I wanted 200 onion plants...I might get 150 if I'm lucky. Oh well...live and learn! THE END

Hey Guys, I just repotted my Ponderosa and Seedless Washington navel into the gritty mix. WHEW! Its too hot for this crap! Its 8:15pm and still in the low 70's with high humidity. I did learn my lesson though with not planting right into the gritty mix. The Ponderosa was just a rooted cutting that I bought so it was much easier to remove the soil from the rootball but NOT THE navel!! THe Oro is really progressing quite nicely. I think in another month or 2 they should be ready to pick. THe only down side is that I have not seen any blooms since early summer but I cannot wait for these fruits! Andrew

I figured it out! It is a brand new domain name and I forgot that it updates at different times around the world. So although it works for me here, it may not work "yet" for others in different parts of the world. That's why they always say "allow up to 72 hours" for the domain to take effect...even though it was quick to go live here in CA! :) Sorry again for the trouble, but I won't start worrying until it's still not live in the next few days. Aloha, Leilani