Hi everyone,
A few years I felt in love with this wonderful bamboo species. Because I still live with my parents, and they were affraid the bamboo would take over the whole garden, they only wanted to allow a small space to let the bamboo grow in. The picture shows that space, which is surrounded with root barriere, specially for bamboos. The bamboo is three years old today.
Now this is what I want too reach with the bamboo plant: nice thick culms with wonderful green stripes in it. (picture taken fron internet, couldn't turn off the copyright by cumulus 79 thingy)
Do you think it's possible to reach this size of culms in such a small space, only a square meter? Is it safe to keep the bamboo there (they sometimes tell it can escape when the space is too limited). The barriere is 65 centimeters deep.
How can I approch this the best, or am I really forced to give the bamboo more space?
I'm also thinking about growing a second plant of this bamboo as bonsai in a container. Is it possible to reach such thickness of culms if I apply bonsai techniques on it?
Many thanks in advance,
Hendrik
Hello Cumulus,
Just found your post, I'm sorry there has not been a response for you.
I'll try. If you can beg, plead and surrender a big toe for more space, take it!
:-)
Today we visited a bamboo garden and fell even deeper in love with
bamboo thanwe were before. We saw a good sized grove of P. vivax aureo
and even brought home a nice pot of it.
Honestly, if you can get more space, take it. You can control the boo
by mowing where you don't want it, though it has been said that you should
allow a mowing area as wide as the boo is tall. In other words, if the boo
reaches 20 feet, you could have shoots popping up around the initial planting.
Simply run the lawnmower over the area.
I hope you are able to get more space to grow it. It is truly a beautiful
plant. Perhaps you could research a few sites on the internet and show
your folks what they are missing. A nice P. vivax aureo grove is simply
gorgeous!
KM
P.S.
Great site, great reading:
http://www.bamboosourcery.com/catalog.cfm?print=1
Aargh, the bamboo has escaped despite the rhizome barier :(
Been working all day with an axe and a crowbar to remove the whole thing.
I'm planning to grow it in containers now (I made cuttings before removing it). Dus anyone knows great websites or tips about container grown Bamboo? I'm really hooked on the beautiful Phyllostachys vivax aureocaulis so I won't be happy with a Lucky Bamboo or other plants as replacement, but that's the only thing I can find on internet unfortunately...
An update on our Vivax, this year thus far we have seen 20 shoots, and it is still early. Some of
the shoots are quite far from the original planting.
Cuculus, glad to see your update! :)
I'm also counting around 20 shoots on the roots I have been digging up. I have been eating a few because I wanted to do something with them in stead of just throwing into the container, and they taste really great. Maybe I'll make a tasteful soup with the remaining ones.
I have taken about 15 cuttings and I will do some experiments with each cutting. A couple of them will be trained into a bonsai, another one will be grown in a large container to get a plant with many culms, another one will be in a large container to get a plant with only a couple of culms. I'll also put some in long but narrow containers and there will also be some plants growing on hydroponics and other media.
Information about bamboo in containers is hard to find, so I hope to help other bamboo enthousiasts with small gardens by sharing the results of my experiments.
To be continued ;)
