My bissetii are flowering (in central PA). Anyone else? Statistics: Posted by jpluddite — Fri May 03, 2024 11:17 pm ..read more

Howdy folks. I have a nice grove of bamboo behind a 3-sided barrier at my current house, but we're moving to a new place that has a smaller yard. So, I need a bamboo in garden zone 7b (near Hershey, PA) that is about 8-12 feet tall (else it will shade the garden). Ideally, the bamboo would be fairly erect. So far, I've thought about japonica and arundinaria gigatea. How tall will those get in my climate and how well will they do behind a 360-degree barrier? Aggression? Other recommendations? I'll appreciate any guidance you can offer. Statistics: Posted by jpluddite — Fri May 03, 2024 9:20 ..read more

I always make sure to really water well going into winter. When it freezes it's cutting off water to the plant. Simulating drought. If it's already dry and then freezes, it just made sense to me it would be worse. Especially if you get cold blasts of wind, just because it's cold out and winter, doesn't mean it won't dry it out the same as a dry summer. It may take a little longer, but it will happen all the same. Statistics: Posted by T9D — Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:24 am ..read more

Maybe this has been discussed before, but I've now got some pretty good data about this, so thought I'd post again. If you live where it gets pretty cold even for a short time, your bamboos will really suffer if they are drought-stressed! For the last two years, here in St. Louis we've had pretty dry fall and winters. Not leaf-curling dry, but dry. Both winters were quite mild, with temps rarely getting into the mid-20's F, often staying above freezing. Until... we get the arctic blast and for 4-6 days temperatures get into single digit F with strong winds. This caused 95% of the leaves to d ..read more

That's a bummer man, sorry to hear that. I remember back around 2000 I always wanted black bamboo. My neighbor had some. It seemed rare and had an aura about it back then. But back then it was way too expensive for me. I think only one or two nurseries sold it near me. I had no idea Garden Bamboo Nursery was not far away though. I drove all over Portland looking for it and at a decent price. It was selling for like $180 a pot (I want to say maybe even like $220) and I needed a few pots worth. Back then that is like $300 a pot now. For a young guy with his first house and not much money it was ..read more

I wrote an update about the culm color: https://cold-hardy.com/culm-color-of-va ... seedlings/ It seems that one of the seedlings tend to have greener sulcus on yellowish culm and the other one is randomly variegated. They are all darker green on the bottom part of the culm and when you go up the stem, they become more and more yellow with more pronounced variegation. Statistics: Posted by Tarzanus — Tue Jan 23, 2024 5:11 am ..read more

I hope mine survives but I fear it won’t. I’d wanted black bamboo for years, decades actually but it was such an expensive plant and I don’t have much luck with pot plants. I eventually bought a spindly little pot of it in 2019 and then noticed some growing in a garden in my town that was flowering. I had only just got mine and thought it would die, but it survived and thrived. I divided it and now have 5 big pots with the most recent growth as tall as the highest point on the roof of my house. It’s all looking beautiful and now it will probably die. I wish I could save it. I’m so sad. Statist ..read more

Perhaps in the end, there are enough seeds after all. Birds and rodents have a hard time searching for seeds, because there are almost none among the empty seed husks. That way bamboo plant can prolong the flowering because it needs much less nutrients if it doesn't go all-in into seed production. Perhaps when its energy level starts declining it does produce seeds in larger quantities. I started one Phyllostachys nigra 'Hennonis' seedling (from one single viable seed in a batch of mostly empty spikelets) and it grows fine so far. Most of the grains I just cleaned were under-developed. Vast m ..read more

Hi You may be interested in a recent video from Ness Gardens Ness Gardens December 2023 - The KR bamboo's https://youtu.be/P2_OgDFvQLg I also run a group on Facebook called Bamboo UK, lots of good discussion in what is a relatively new group Tony Statistics: Posted by Tony Shep — Mon Jan 15, 2024 9:03 am ..read more

I read that it rarely has viable seeds. If that’s true then how come it doesn’t go extinct after flowering? Statistics: Posted by Black Dog — Mon Jan 15, 2024 3:25 am ..read more