Dove, when you say that they'll look like a pot of sticks, do you mean they'll lose all their foliage if I topped them? Basically they'd die as plants if they were pruned and just have a bunch of bamboo canes left?
No, they wouldn't lose all their leaves, but they'd lose the elegance of they way they taper towards the top, bigger leaves and thicker stem lower down, getting narrower, smaller and more elegant towards the top.
But it's up to you - you've got them now.
Why do you want to prune them back? Is there a limit on the height they can be?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'd rather not prune them back to honest but I don't want them to damage the fence in any way as the pots are only about half a metre away from the fence and they look like they could grow quite wide and are already touching the fence a bit.
In terms of height, again I'd love them to grow nice and tall in an ideal world - 5 metres would be fantastic haha.. that would actually block out the neighbours top window view of the garden and provide some real added privacy but the problem is I don't want to cause any issues with the neighbours in terms of blocking their light or anything like that.
I got the impression already that they weren't too pleased with them being in front of the fence because they've been accustomed to opening their side door and having a direct line of site on my whole garden, decking and my beautiful apple tree (and whoever's in the garden) soon as they open the door.
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Dove, when you say that they'll look like a pot of sticks, do you mean they'll lose all their foliage if I topped them? Basically they'd die as plants if they were pruned and just have a bunch of bamboo canes left?
No, they wouldn't lose all their leaves, but they'd lose the elegance of they way they taper towards the top, bigger leaves and thicker stem lower down, getting narrower, smaller and more elegant towards the top.
But it's up to you - you've got them now.
Why do you want to prune them back? Is there a limit on the height they can be?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'd rather not prune them back to honest but I don't want them to damage the fence in any way as the pots are only about half a metre away from the fence and they look like they could grow quite wide and are already touching the fence a bit.
In terms of height, again I'd love them to grow nice and tall in an ideal world - 5 metres would be fantastic haha.. that would actually block out the neighbours top window view of the garden and provide some real added privacy but the problem is I don't want to cause any issues with the neighbours in terms of blocking their light or anything like that.
I got the impression already that they weren't too pleased with them being in front of the fence because they've been accustomed to opening their side door and having a direct line of site on my whole garden, decking and my beautiful apple tree (and whoever's in the garden) soon as they open the door.