Screening is the single most common reason people come to us. A new neighbour builds a second storey, a fence turns out to be lower than expected, or a pool area needs privacy before summer. The question is nearly always the same: what will give a solid green wall in the shortest time?
For Adelaide conditions there are two answers we come back to, and they suit quite different sites.
Gracilis Slender Weaver Bamboo
This is the plant to reach for when you need height fast and have very little width to give it.
Slender Weaver is a clumping bamboo, not a running one. That distinction matters enormously. Running bamboo sends aggressive underground shoots out sideways and is the reason bamboo has a bad reputation in suburban gardens. Clumping bamboo expands slowly outward from its own base and stays where it is planted.
It is frost tolerant, grows in full sun or shade, and forms a tall, soft screen that moves in the wind. In a narrow side passage or along a boundary where a hedge would take up too much room, nothing else really competes.
Our advanced sizes:
- 52–70 litre — around 3.5 metres tall, roughly 7 culms per pot, from $285
- 150 litre — 4 to 4.5 metres tall, around 20 culms per pot, from $550
For a continuous screen, plant at roughly 1 to 1.5 metre spacing. Closer for an immediate solid wall, wider if you are prepared to let the clumps fill in over a season or two.
Acmena Sublime Lilly Pilly
Where bamboo gives you a tall, light screen, Lilly Pilly gives you a dense, formal hedge you can clip to shape.
Acmena Sublime is an Australian native and a genuinely hardy one. Its main advantage over other options is that it is fully immune to the lilly pilly bug — the pest that leaves the older syzygium cultivars covered in pimpled, disfigured foliage. That immunity alone makes it worth choosing over a cheaper lilly pilly.
It works as a clipped hedge, as an informal screen left to grow naturally, or as a single specimen plant. Glossy evergreen foliage, and it takes shaping well.
Our advanced sizes:
- 110 litre — 2 metres plus, entry level stock, $585
- 150 litre — 3 metres plus, very bushy, $750
- 240 litre — 3 metres plus, more advanced, $990
- 250 litre — 3.5 metres plus, premium stock, $1,750
- 250–350 litre — 3.5 metres plus, super advanced, $2,000
Which one for your site?
- Narrow space — bamboo. It will hold a screen in well under a metre of width.
- You want a clipped, formal look — Lilly Pilly. Bamboo cannot be shaped the same way.
- Maximum height quickly — bamboo. It starts taller and keeps going.
- Solid at ground level — Lilly Pilly. Bamboo screens beautifully from about waist height up, but is more open at the base.
- Native planting — Lilly Pilly.
A lot of gardens end up using both: bamboo down the tight side of the house, Lilly Pilly across the wider back boundary.
Worth knowing before you buy
Screening plants are the one category where buying advanced genuinely pays for itself. A screen is either doing its job or it is not — there is limited value in a hedge that will be effective in four years, because the problem you are solving is happening now.
Prices above include GST, and we deliver across South Australia. Because our stock is grown onsite in large tubs it is hardened to local conditions — if you would like to walk the rows and pick your own, Saturday mornings 9am to 12pm are the easiest time.