Hi Roger, With the pleached trees, I think your underplanting amps up the tropical look especially if you go with a magnolia that have the dark green upper leave and the bronze underside. You could just go for banana or palms - personally I think you might be right about the clumping bamboo becoming a bit dense. Regarding your 400mm retaining wall - citrus are shallow rooted and tend to have a root system that goes out to their drip line. Maybe if you put it in a corner you can use the corner to espalier it in conjunction with staking it to get upper stablility but I'm not sure how it'd go with the roots - but give it a go at $30-50 depending upon size it's not an huge amount if it doesn't do well - just dig it up (just watch the thorns) and give it to a friend - check out Daileys for varieties and maybe get in touch and see what they think, they might do them on a dwarf root stock - I've found them to be helpful in the past. i'd be reluctant to underplant any kind of citrus though - as they are shallow feeders.

Different plant so may not be relevant but my Boston Fern (from Coles) which was meant to be easy care did nothing but struggle and die off for the first few months until I got to the point where I put it outside under our Japanese Maple in disgust so it could die a quiet death out of sight. Obviously the dappled light and rainwater did it wonders because it came back to life (and we are in a hot/cold/dry climate where it should not have survived outside). It's now back inside and as long as I give it Seasol once a fortnight in addition to it's normal watering it seems to still be happy. So perhaps a change of location and some food might help. Good luck.

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