phy. violescens

[needmore]

Can anyone here tell me if Phy. Violescens has the coloration on new culms or does is take a season or more for it to develop? From what I've been able to glean from da'net, it sounds like the color is there in the beginning but fades with age?

[David]

Hi Brad,

I don't have Violascens yet but I have several references that mention it. Ted Meridith, Micheal Bell, and Paul Whittaker all mention violascens in their books. Apparently the culms are are green to purple brown when they emerge, then over succeding years the culms color with violet, yellow green, yellow, and dark purple brown. There are apparently two forms, the inferior form is smaller, and colors more and earlier. To confuse matters more violascens is often confused with iridescens. If you are going to grow this we should order from diff places and then hopefully one of us will get one with good color, and we could swap out as necessary.

I'm going to solve this problem by ordering both, and maybe duplicate them from a 2nd source, and just grow them and see what happens. My sweet, understanding, bamboo tolerant wife, picked out violascens as her "favorite", and I want to get her involved with her 'own' bamboo.

[Thuja]

Ah, Confucius say:

Bamboo-tolerant spouse makes for happy marriage.

[needmore]

David, I remember Marc at Bambu-u saying that he had gotten lucky with his and his has really good purple coloration, so you might want to keep that in mind as a source. I have just been offered a piece from a bambooo friend so I'll try to work that one out and let you know what it looks like.

[green99]

I think it is also a matter of environment. On the coast here in northern California it is really vigourous, and has some of the nicest colors on them(in partial shade and temps usally under 80F in summer) . Then I planted some inland where it has longer growing season, and gets to 110 every summer. It really sized up quickly. I had expected some sort drastic color change, and there was. It was totally plain. Maybe when it got a little larger it would show more, but still not as good looking at that stage.

[David]

Maybe it should be renamed P. violascens f. variable Yes Mike, Confucius was right about bamboo tolerant wives. He must have been a prophet too, or how else would he have know that we would no longer eat, sleep, wear, live in, walk on, and etc, bamboo

[rfgpitt]

Thuja,
I should have consulted with Confucius before tying the knot. I've had to slowly increase the insanity around here. $30 for all the rubro David sent didn't start an argument, but I did get the rolling eyes.

Keep us updated on where you get the plants and coloring on the violascens.......

[Markj]

It takes at least a season to colour up here, I paid for this from two grower's here only to find both mislabled , ended up digging a bit from Mike Bells plant a couple of years ago so it's still small.