Bambusa emeiensis 'Viridiflavus'

[mike best]

Check out the growth of Bambusa emeiensis 'Viridiflavus' from 2006 to 2008!

6-21-2006 (one culm, never topped, about 35 feet tall, field division, with very few roots)


11-11-2006


3-25-07


6-24-07


8-13-2007


7-4-08



8-16-08


Now that's a well behaved bamboo!

[Roy]

Mike,

Check on your culms and see if you are getting any new culms without the yellow striping.

[mike best]

I knew you would ask that as I saw a discussion on it, but don't remember the outcome.

They are fading it seems and not bright like the first original division. I even venture to say one culm is totally void of the alternating yellow stripe but they grow so packed tight together, it is hard to tell sometimes.

Do you think it might be that the sun is not hitting the culms as much or are you on to something else?

Here is the mother plant at Bountiful Earth I got the division from, you can see the yellow stripes are brighter than mine.

[webgator]

Very nice! I'm jealous and based on your pics now know I have room for it in my yard!

[Roy]

I knew you would ask that as I saw a discussion on it, but don't remember the outcome.

They are fading it seems and not bright like the first original division. I even venture to say one culm is totally void of the alternating yellow stripe but they grow so packed tight together, it is hard to tell sometimes.

Do you think it might be that the sun is not hitting the culms as much or are you on to something else?

Here is the mother plant at Bountiful Earth I got the division from, you can see the yellow stripes are brighter than mine.

[img]9.jpg[/img]

Mike,

I'm beginning to wonder if the lack of sunlight causes the absence of striping on new culms. On my potted ones, they seem to alternate between putting up striped culms and totally green culms. The one I planted in mostly shade (gets several hours of morning sun in the Summer) has only put up green shoots. The plant is pretty ever without the striping, but much more so with the striping. When I was a Sherry Snodgress's place in June, I looked at her clump, which was in full sun all day long, and it seemed like every culm had striping. I don't know that the absence of sunlight is the cause, but I'm wondering about it.

[mike best]

Very nice! I'm jealous and based on your pics now know I have room for it in my yard!

Would you believe it has never once damaged the screen porch that it is right next to!

It has an uncanny way of growing just slightly away from the house and no culms or branches actually touch my screen or roof edge, and I have never had to cut, dig or trim anything back.

It is a very tight clumper with a very small foot print at the ground, only spreading out on the way to the tops except somehow it spreads away from the edge of the roof.

Even through hurricane Fay high winds I thought, OK, I am going to have bamboo in my porch, but no.

The leaves take high wind very well but the new culms are not a wind tolerant at all, they are thin and you can crush them with your hand. It likes to put up allot of fragile new culms during hurricane season. During fay it broke 10 or so new culms, but because it is prolific at putting up new culms it has since put up about 12 new ones to make up for the loss.

Also the leaves also wilt during high heat but with no damaging effects.

[webgator]

That is surprising that there was no damage to your enclosure from the bamboo, even more so that it has put up so many more shoots since the hurricane.

I have a friend making a trip to Chuck's next weekend and he will certainly be bringing me back one of these...plus a few others!

[blokker]

Mike

That's a great looking bamboo you've got there. I'm interested in what you've used to stabilise your original culm? I can't quite make it out in the photo, is it a rigid clamp onto the culm or does it have some flexibility? It's sure done a great job anyway

[mike best]

The idea was to lock down the roots and prevent them from moving. I did not at all want to control the movement of a 35 foot tall bamboo blowing in the wind as it does naturally.

I used 2 aluminum pipes hammered deep in the ground. The type used in chain link fencing.

The one culm was in the middle of the 2 pipes and tied to each of the pipes useing one inch sling line or sometimes called tow strap, winch flat rope, tow line.

This method worked fine and I did not have to adjust anything later down the road. The only problem was when it came time to remove the pipes I could only get one out of the ground and had to leave the other in due to it being so deep.

The culm would still sway in the breeze quite a bit because the sway was distributed all the from top to bottom of culm as it does naturaly anyway.

Because the boo was on a very short rope and there was very sort distances from piped to culm, there was very little room for movement in the roots down below so the only movement that happened was up top.

I think if I would have locked the culm up high, it could of broke in high wind. Locking the culm at its lowest point gives it time to absorb wind impact from high up and distribute that at intervals along the length of the culm length as it would naturaly.

[blokker]

Thanks for that Mike

I use a similar principle for newly planted bamboo to stop the root ball of the young plant from moving in the ground until it is established (a garden stake on either side with an elasticised band between them around the biggest culm as low as possible to the ground) exactly like you say you still want them to sway in the breeze but don't want the roots to move in the ground
I had always wondered how I would support a new division of the size you worked with but your description is a great help (and obviously successful!)

[Roy]

On the issue of no striping and shade, I have a large pot of B. e. 'Vifidiflavus'. It is producing new culms with no striping. Well that's at least what I though. What I've been looking at, in this pot, is the culms on the shady side. I went around to the sunny side, (it only gets sun in the morning--the afternoon the plant is shaded), and lo and behold I see striping. On the shady side, no stripes. So this plant does need to have sun to produce the yellow striping. I'm going to keep checking this observance and see if it holds true.

[HurryUp&Grow]

Awesome photos! I've been lurking for a while and spent probably way too much time pouring over your pictures.

I'm planning a project to plant these along a fence line which divides my house from a neighbors. I have a smaller yard, so I'm trying to get them as close to the fence as possible without overtaking my neighbor's yard. I've spoken with the neighbor about the project and she's fine if a few shoots poke through to her side but I'd rather minimize this as much as possible without sacrificing too much yard space on my side.

Granted overall footprint depends on soil quality/sun/moisture content...do you guys have any advice on this?

I was planning maybe 3-4ft away from the fence.

[Roy]

http://www.bambooweb.info/bb/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=711

Awesome photos! I've been lurking for a while and spent probably way too much time pouring over your pictures.

I'm planning a project to plant these along a fence line which divides my house from a neighbors. I have a smaller yard, so I'm trying to get them as close to the fence as possible without overtaking my neighbor's yard. I've spoken with the neighbor about the project and she's fine if a few shoots poke through to her side but I'd rather minimize this as much as possible without sacrificing too much yard space on my side.

Granted overall footprint depends on soil quality/sun/moisture content...do you guys have any advice on this?

I was planning maybe 3-4ft away from the fence.

[HurryUp&Grow]

I should have noted that I'm creating 50ft wall of bamboo and I'm not looking to put a liner in. I guess my question boils down to how big of a foot print does a mature specimen of Yin Yang Bamboo grow to become.

[Glen]

Clumping bamboos, like Bambusa, do not produce horizontal rhizomes that extend underground, radiating out from the plant, as are found in running bamboos. However, the idea that clumping bamboos have a defined mature footprint is misleading.

Clumping bamboos will expand a little each year, producing new shoots just beyond the previous generation of shoots. In this way, they will expand indefinitely. A clump that is 20 feet wide at the base will continue to produce shoots just outside its previous perimeter. Unlike trees, which usually slow their growth at maturity, bamboos just continue indefinitely to expand at a steady pace, depending on available resources.

If you plant your bamboos 3 to 4 feet from the fence, and do not control their spread, they will eventually grow into and under the fence. Even though your neighbor may not mind the shoots on their side, the fence may be damaged.

A simple solution is to plant your bamboos at the distance you mentioned from the fence, and then manually control their spread. All you have to do is periodically go down your fence line, and break or cut any new shoots that emerge closer than you want to the fence. These shoots are soft, like a big vegetable, and they are easily removed. This will allow you to grow the plants indefinitely, without letting them become unmanageable. You can control the footprint and the direction of expansion of the plants on all sides using this method.

Just remember to keep at least a couple feet between the plants and the fence, so you can get back there to work. Some people plant closer, but I recommend a cautious approach, just in case you need the room to repair the fence. I would plant as far as possible from your fence, while still accommodating your other landscape goals.