[Amateur]

Hello all,
Our garden is flat & the pool is almost in the middle. We have had a 1m 50 wall built to protect it from the winds that blow over the fields across the fields at the back & to the right of us this has created the effect of a "room" but we need to finish the job by decorating it inside & planting something behind it that will grow just a couple of feet higher - we don't want to lose the view. I would like bamboo for the effect it has but I'm worried because I read a couple of people say that the clumping variety turned into a runner after 2-3 years; this would be a disaster. Can anyone suggest a substitute? There is a large square corner inside the wall where I am thinking of putting an acer in a large pot. I prefer plants that can be touched & look soft, unlike palms, but I would welcome any advice.
Thanks in advance. 

[Alice]

Heidi Gildemeister's book "Gardening the Mediterranean Way - practical solutions for summer-dry climates" has a chapter on swimming pool gardens which includes a long list of suitable plants. She also gives useful tips, e.g avoiding plants which produce a lot of litter.
We don't have a pool, so I don't speak from experience, but what about Pittosporum tobira or Feijoa sellowiana?

[Alisdair]

Hello, Amateur, and welcome again to the Forum!
You'll find quite a few helpful thoughts about screening plants from other forum members if you click here - and more on people's experiences with bamboos if you click here.

[David Bracey]

hello, please look at http://mediterraneangardensocietyfrance.com/cm/product.php?lang=en&catid=313&plid=1150 .  This shows a clipped hedge of Teucrium fruticans. It is surprising what can be achieved! In the same vein you could use seedlings of the evergreen oak clipped into shape.

Other plants you could review are Photinia "Red Robin", Eleagnus spp., Punica, Olives, etc.

[MikeHardman]

For maximum space saving, you could consider painting a mural on the wall, which could be of bamboos if you like.
Murals need no watering, suffer from no pests or diseases, drop no leaves or flowers into the pool, won't scratch when you walk by, won't disturb the foundations or pipework, etc

[Fleur Pavlidis]

Innovative reply, Mike! Going back to plants, one of the defence mechanisms of mediterranean plants is their scratchiness – Teucrium fruticans and pomegranate fall into that category – and I would agree with Amateur that soft-leafed plants are better for round a pool. Given that the plants need to look attractive in the summer when the pool is in use I suggest: Epilobium canum – lovely soft grey foliage with orange flowers right now and about 90 cm tall, Gaura lindheimeri – see photo of mass planting here. Anisodontea malvastroides and Pavonia hastata both good for growing up through other plants and flower all summer, Agapanthus, large and dwarf, blue and white.  If you have a paved corner protected from wind and sun then pots with Jasminum sambac growing up a support will scent the air and Elephant Ears (Alocasia) give an exotic look without exotic problems.  None of these plants would cause much trouble with rubbish.

[Amateur]

Hello all, thank you very much for those suggestions which I am about to start researching. 
We do have some Photinia "Red Robin" in the garden hedge - in fact if had known what I know now I would have had it all the way around instead of some of the others we put in, but I would like to look at some of the other ideas. I did suggest the idea of a mural to two artist friends - only partly in joke, but they said it had been done locally & had faded & looked shabby quite quickly. Besides, there is still the wind factor. I'm going to try & post a photo of the area in question. Thanks again. 

[Alisdair]

In 2006, at the Mediterranean Garden Society's AGM in Uzés, Dominique Lafourcade the leading Provençal landscape designer showed us round the garden of Fontchâteau, designed by her. The swimming pool here had a splendidly witty combination of screening hedge and mural. The yew hedge had in it more or less life-size reproductions of 18th-century gentilhommes, placed so that it looked as if they were trying to peer through the hedge at the swimmers.

[MikeHardman]

Re "There is a large square corner inside the wall where I am thinking of putting an acer in a large pot."
Sounds like you're thinking of a Japanese maple (sensu lato). I think that would get badly scorched by months of hot sun and drying winds. A clump-forming grass would be a soft alternative, but not there - the seeds in the pool...  Jasmine could form a softish clump, though it can get a bit untidy.
...And with Jasmine or something similar, you could train it along wires (I would use plastic-coated steel cable) strung on short poles/posts extending upwards from the top of the wall (giving you the extra height you are looking for). Lonicera etrusca would work; a little debris in the pool from the flowers, and at some times of the year, leaves get shed too. Trachelospermum spp., Podranea ricasoliana, Stephanotis and Senecio angulatus, too, but I don't have personal experience of their debris-shedding habits.