My bamboo friggin' rocks.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It kind of looks like this but it’s not that large and a little denser.

That’s fargesia robusta. Mine is some kind of fargesia but I don’t know if it’s robusta.

So, I got the bamboo in the middle of summer 2003. It was kind of lame, small, nothing special. It didn’t do anything that year, just kind of sat there. But, then last spring I started noticing, “hmm, that shoot wasn’t there yesterday” and I started paying attention. The stuff was growing, seriously, like 4 inches a day.

It’s interesting stuff. The existing shoots don’t really grow year to year. However, the NEW shoots come up THICKER and TALLER than all previous shoots.

Switch to this year. About one and a half weeks ago, I first noticed the tips of shoots coming up. Well, BLAMMO brother, the tallest shoots are already like 4-5 feet tall. The base is as thick as a finger. I went for a bike ride the other day and when I got home, I think it had grown 2 inches.

For the last 4-5 days, the shoots have been growing like 6 inches per day. No exaggeration. On top of that, the old shoots tend to fall over a bit, so the plant has the effect of a “fountain” with tall stalks sticking straight up and the older ones falling around them.

Careful with bamboo though, the kind I have (and I was very clear about this when I bought it) is “spreading” (I don’t know if that’s the proper term). The new shoots just kind of grow around the base of the old shoots. It can take up space, but some bamboo is “running”. It sends shoots out horizontally underground and can take over any space it’s in. Talk to your landscaper first. It can go into neighbor’s yards and be impossible to get rid of.

I look forward to going home from work every day to see how much the bamboo has grown.

2

very cool, i’ve always wanted to have some bamboo (i’d plant it in a heavy pot so it wouldn’t spread), but the only “bamboo” available in my area is that stupid Dracaena (“Lucky” bamboo) that isn’t even real bamboo

any links on where to find good bamboo for sale, i’d probably end up growing it in our sunroom, no way for it to get outside that way…

3

Bamboo is a gratifying plant, isn’t it? When I was a kid my dad had created an Asian-inspired garden with bamboo, among other exotics. I have always had a facination with growing things, and even as a preschooler in the spring/summer I would measure the bamboo in the morning and again in the evening, marveling at the rapid growth, compared to the zinnias, nasturtiums, and marigolds. In the dusty depths of my memory I seem to recall a hot summer day when I sat and watched the bamboo, trying to see it grow!

Thanks for the url, perhaps I will be able to find a cold hardy bamboo which will tolerate my damp, cool/cold climate!

4

I had a lil’ bamboo forest behind the home I lived in while I was in NY. Great fun, and damn do they ever grow fast! Also a good point about warning neighbors, that stuff can spring up all over the place, but it’s nothing a good pair of clippers shouldn’t be able to deal with if caught early. The apical meristem, is after all, the only growing part. Cut it off, and the stalk dies.

5

There’s some beautiful HUGE stands of it around it Baltimore. It does very well here.

There was one where the ENTIRE front lawn (probably 10x20 foot) of this one guy’s row house was like 10 foot tall bamboo. There could have been a panda in there. You couldn’t see through it. He chopped it all down, but there were sprouts the next year.

I haven’t been by that place in a while. Might have to roll the ol’ bike by here one of these days.

6

Aaah, yes, bamboo.

When my parents purchased our house, not quite 19 years ago, there was a small row of year-old bamboo along the back border of the backyard. Huh, nice, they said. It was not a factor in buying the house, but it was a nice touch.

Fast forward a few years. There’s now a massive forest of bamboo spanning between our yard and the neighbors behind us. You’d need a machete to get through there. And, lo and behold, one spring, some new bamboo popped up, along the side of our driveway! It’s migrated!

Bamboo grows fast. Every summer, we have a three-day-long Battle of the Bamboo, in which the NinjaFather and I go out, armed with clippers, twine for bundling, work gloves, and ocassionally a small saw. We hack, saw, clip, tie, bundle, and so on, until we get the bamboo back to a respectable length (mostly so that it’s not attempting to engulf my mother’s car when she parks it). Bamboo is awe-inspiring, but it can be a pain.

7

I love bamboo. I haven’t got room for any here.

PS: Couldn’t email you as no email address listed - we’re having a 'fest May 21.

8

That day is still up in the air for me. I have a bike race that Sunday and we might be out of town that Saturday. I’ll hit you up for details when the date approaches.

I’ll fix up my profile, too. I thought it was in there.

9

I was fooled by the “Lucky Bamboo”, which I purchased as an impulse buy at Wal*Mart. I like the little Dracaena plant, but felt really stupid when I researched it online. D’oh!

10

My parents live in Houston, and at their old house, there was a small stand of non-running type bamboo.

As a child, it wasn’t too big, but by the time I hit middle school, watch out! That stuff would grow to something like 30 feet high and be 2 inches in diameter at the base. I think my dad actually measured it over a period of time and found that during that particular summer it grew something like an inch or two a day.

Probably didn’t hurt that it was planted more or less over the sanitary sewer trunk line for the neighborhood… (I’m guessing that the roots made their way into a joint somehow).

11

My experience is similar. i planted two cuttings of phylostychys aureosulcata (did I get that right?/), about 4 years ago. the stuff is spreading like crazy. It is no problem to control-just cut off the emergent shoots in the spring. My problem is the cold-burned leaves…my shoots were doing well until last February. The leaves were all nice and green-and then we had a two week period of temps. below 20 F. This caused a lot of the leaves to turn brown. the canes are still alive-hope they will put out nice leaves. I also like the effect of the bamboo -it reminds me of a jungle.
I’d like to plant “Black” bamboo-but they want a fortune for it! Like $90.00/bucket!

12

My brother used to live in the old Armadillo Headquarters house in Houston, Texas and years before someone had planted Bamboo in the backyard. He never used the yard but the neighbor behind him (who was also his landlord) complained that it was growing under and through the fence.

He got (don’t ask me how) a Javelina and put it in the yard, it rooted up the Bamboo nicely and everything was fine until the day the meter reader guy jumped the fence. When my bro’ arrived home that night everybody was there, Animal Control, Cops, the Light company investigators, etc.

He got a few large fines and Animal Control disposed of the Javelina.

Unclviny

13

I finally found a local garden shop that sells REAL bamboo, the REAL stuff, not that Dracaena crap, they have 2 varieties;

[http://www.bambooselect.us/consumer/plants/species_far_nit.phpFargesia nitida
and
Fargesia Rufa

I picked up the Rufa, as it had more vigorus growth, it was easily twice the height of the Nitida, yes i know that Nitida grows taller than Rufa, but since i wasn’t sure if it was going to be an outside plant or inside plant i’d err on the side of caution, an 8 foot tall bamboo is easier to deal with inside a house than a 12-18 footer…

since the garden center is so close by (15 minutes), i’ll probably go back in a few weeks to see how the Nitida is doing and probably buy a pot, that one will go outside…

i don’t know if it’s psychosomatic or what, but driving back home with the bamboo in the car, the air felt fresher and cleaner, it felt like the air feels like after a thunderstorm…

maybe it’s because bamboo is (apparently) 35% more efficient at cleaning the air than other plants, including trees…

i performed a little experiment, i had my mother and father each take turns sitting down next to the bamboo plant, both remarked that the air seemed fresher, cleaner and cooler, none of them were aware that bamboo may have this effect on the air…

finally, i can make my own little bamboo grove, now i just need to sink in a small Koi pond and frame it with bamboo…

14

My bamboo isn’t rockin’ yet, but I like it so far.

I bought some “golden bamboo” at the local Home Despot. I was looking for something that will grow big, wide and bushy, because as they say, it’s ideal for a privacy screen.

However, after dealing with invasive St. John’s wort that will. not. die., I am not eager to put this stuff directly in the ground. I’ve got two plants, each in a fairly big container, set outside where hopefully, they will flesh out (bamboo out?) and give me a little feeling of privacy in our wee back yard.