some of my bamboo

[trepanier]

hello everyone i just joined and i guess i will start off showing some of
the bambooo we are growing i have Hibanobambusa tranquillans 'Shiroshima' Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'Spectabilis' on the land we just got i will post when i can get some nice pics oh and srry my hands are dirty

Phyllostachys nigra 'Henon'


Phyllostachys atrovaginata

moso!! is now about 11 to 12 feet tall



Indocalamus tessellatus




Pleioblastus viridistriatus just planted...


moso seedlings !!
the babies r growing (11 seedlings made it which is good for me ^.^)




i am now starting up some Sasa senanensis seeds i hope it goes well i will post when they start to shoot





just pretty

[stevelau1911]

That's some pretty impressive upsize in 1 year for moso. What climate zone are you in?

I've had one since June of 2008 and it has put out 5 shooting seasons so far, only sizing up about 30% each time starting out with 1ft tall on the first round and 5-6ft now and over 100 culms now with last month's shoots so hopefully as they mature, they'll shoot less times each year and produce a better upsize.

[trepanier]

hello
and it is ! i dont really know what to expect...
and i live in 2 zones right on the line of 6 and 7 i think its the crazy kentcky wealther we cant grow any hardy tropics ex.hardy banana b/c are winter go from warm to very cold all through winter it could get into the 50s than drop to the teens but the bamboo seems to love it i have not had any left burn or anything like that mybe u sould try REALLY heavy mulching right befor shooting thats what i have been doing sometime i have to move the mulch away so it doesnt burn it

[needmore]

Steve - do you have a Moso division or just the seedlings? Your seedlings will not behave like a Moso division at all, the divisions will get big fast unless top killed, but the seedlings stay in the juvenile state for years and are quite different from growing Moso - even though they are Moso. All of your observations regarding your seedlings do not apply to divisions.

[stevelau1911]

When I got it back in summer of 2008 as my first bamboo, it was only 1 (2ft) tall (1/8 inch thick) culm with 8 leaves total which was near the side of the pot, and it looked like there were many tiny stumps (1/16-1/8) inch thick which came in a 1 gallon pot which hardly had any roots in it. This plant produced 6 fall shoots, but it almost completely topkilled in winter of 2008/2009. The seller pandabamboo said that it was a division, but I think the division must have been taken off a very juvenile plant. It really didn't do much until July of 2009 when the # of culms kept increasing.

The culms that have been produced this year are noticeably larger in diameter, especially at the base, way more internodes, longer branches and there is a crazy # of new shoots produced this year, so I doubt it will have 3 shooting cycles again this year, and I think the shoots of next year will look almost like the mature form, and may break the 10ft mark if the winter isn't too bad.

I notice that the 1st year ones from seed will shoot pretty much continuously , and eventually they'll establish cycles after they get a bit older. My 13 month old ones only have a couple plants starting their 2nd round of shoots so the cycles seem to be getting longer and longer as larger shoots take longer to establish.

[trepanier]

it must of been off a juvenile plant if its shooting 3 times in one growing season... a mature form of moso will only shoot one time and that spring when the juvenile plant starts mature it will get runners and much smaller leave are u leaving your seedlings outside during the winter

[stevelau1911]

Last year I've tried over-wintering them indoors by a window, under an unheated greenhouse, under a tarp, and with now protection, but still buried in the ground. Surprisingly the unprotected ones still came back, but really set back. Tarp protection seems to keep most of the leaves green.

I think this winter, I might put the more established ones on craigslist like usual, and all the ones I keep will go under a tarp or wintering over cover because that seems to work even better than an unheated greenhouse. I just create a trench to put all the pots in the ground so that they get the benefit of soil insulation. Seedlings are almost as cold sensitive as tropical clumpers so they can't even take temperatures below 20F, but the older one that I have planted seems much hardier. I think they take 5-10 years to reach their eventual hardiness, maybe even longer given that the century old anderson grove is supposed to be more hardy.

This year I seem to have a caterpillar problem mainly on the 1 year olds which tend to produce the largest leaves out of everything in my bamboo garden. It looks like the huge cigar leaves take a few days to uncurl leaving the new leaves soft and vulnerable for caterpillars to chow down on so I've had to manually kill them off. It's kind of odd how they avoid my larger moso for the most part even though leaves are still pretty big.

[Iowaboo]

awesome pic of the daisies surrounding it

[trepanier]

steve i have been putting mine in a VERY large fish tank i the winter with the fish tank light on all day and night i let mine dry out then water them and they shoot like crazy...have you thought about getting a larger moso division that might get u started off better mine came from midatlanticbamboo it was the moso nottoway clone they started from 2001 and 9 year later there grove is almost mature
and somrthing has been stripping one of my seedling i dont know what it is but thats what it must be do u have any pics

[trepanier]

Lance-thanks lol there more like a weed here they try to kill out everything but the boo

[stevelau1911]

Based on the size of those seedlings, it looks like you started them right in the middle of winter right? I'm not planning on getting a mature division anymore because mine is already big enough for it to reasonably start producing rhizomes which will allow it to store more energy, shoot less often and get me a bigger increase in size. This plant can't clump forever.

Here's my latest picture of my moso grove with shoots just breaking the 5ft mark, but last fall, it showed signs of starting to run so it should behave differently this year. I'm also about a zone colder than you which might also hinder the upsize on my bamboos, but with this much new growth, and a warmer summer, I'll expect much better results next year which will be the 3rd year for almost all my bamboos.



Here's the damage, and the bottom picture shows the caterpillar causing it. There's often 1-3 caterpillars found in the unfolding leaves so I guess the moth, beetle, or butterfly is laying eggs right on the unfolding new leaves.

I have no idea why, but every bamboo I've placed in the ground has become noticeably darker and growing at a faster rate than the potted ones which are in 2-3 gallon pots and definitely not root-bound yet.

[Alan_L]

I have no idea why, but every bamboo I've placed in the ground has become noticeably darker and growing at a faster rate than the potted ones which are in 2-3 gallon pots and definitely not root-bound yet.

Nutrition and/or pH of the soil I'd guess. As hard as we try, it's often really difficult to find out exactly what is lacking from the pot.

[Spectabilis]

What part of Kentucky are you in? I have lived all over that beautiful state!

[trepanier]

hodgenville ky its right below etown

[stevelau1911]

How big has that moso gotten by now?

My guess is that it probably made almost no gains in 2011, but exploded in 2012 with another good upsize eh? If Nottoway clone moso does well in zone 6/7, it may have potential here as well.