If only I had been patient...

[joe lajeunesse]

I started my venture with bamboo about a month ago and it has consumed me. My original plan was to screen out a 70' section at my shop, so I purchased a large quantity of aureosulcata. Since that purchase it seems bamboo is just falling in my lap! One of my customers asked me to remove some japonica from the back of his property so I started a second grove on the other side of my shop. Now just last week, my company was installing a fence for one of our customers. We've been servicing her property for 3 years now and I never noticed that she had a bunch of aureosulcata in her backyard. As we were installing the fence I mentioned that I had never seen it before, and she said she had planted it about 15 years ago and didnt realized it would spread, now her and her neighbors HATE it! (she lives in a tight neighborhood, with not much breathing room between properties. I told her I would take it out for her. So now I am getting paid to take bamboo when a month ago I was paying for it! I will probably get about 30-40 good clumps out of her yard. These plants are anywhere from 2'-15' with culms in the .5"-1.25" range. And leaves from the ground up. Beautiful specimans! If I had only been patient I would have had my screen and would have been paid to take it... but now I can grow more and start another grove in another area!

[Alan_L]

Do you really want to plant another grove of Phy. aureosulcata?

I have much more limited space than you do it sounds like, and aureosulcata was the first runner I bought, then I got a free one shortly after as my 3rd runner. Both are planted in smallish raised beds, and now I wish I had not planted the second. I have several other species in large pots that will need a place in the ground in the next couple years, and having one of those raised beds available would have been a nice option.

Next year when you get a Phy. glauca 'Yunzhu', or Phy. parvifolia and can't figure out where to put it you may be kicking yourself for your early planting "frenzy".

[joe lajeunesse]

well i have about an acre of land to plant in. This is at my shop where I run my landscape company out of and it borders commercial as well as residential properties on all four sides. The driveway is really long with a neighbors house in the front. My property is really "landlocked" by other properties, so I really have about 1000 linear feet that I can utilize for screening. I think the bamboo serves dual purposes- it helps keep my equipment out of sight from nosy neighbors as well as reduces noise coming from my trucks and machines and keeps the neighbors happy from not having to see all my stuff.

I do take your comment to heart though- I dont want to regret my initial planting frenzy but I think I do have enough space.

You mention other varieties- why those imparticular?

[joe lajeunesse]

actually to be honest i dont even know if it is aureosulcata. I dont know that much about bamboo yet to pretend I can identify. It looks similar to the aureosulcata and Im sure it is def phyllostachys, but not positive it is aureosulcata. I posted another thread about basic bamboo identification books. Any suggestions? One of my goals for my landscape company is to eventually open a nursey so I'd like to learn as much as I can about growing and eventually selling bamboo

[Alan_L]

Aureosulcata is fairly easy to ID (as I've learned on this forum). Does it have a yellow sulcus (groove)? When you rub upward on the culms is it really rough, almost "sticky"? If both of those are true then it's probably aureosulcata. Seeing what the shoots look like will finalize the ID.

You can also search the "identification" forum for more tips and photos for comparison.

[needmore]

Good point Alan, I had a similar experience. I ran a free ad in our food coop's newsletter "Will get your bamboo back in bounds in exchange for the plants". I was overwhelmed with Aureosulcata offers and planted it everywhere, giddy with my windfall. I'm now having to drop a tree or 2 to find more sunny planting sites for new species and I have 15-20 new species in pots waiting to size up and go out.

Some of my other mistakes were believing the hardiness ratings I was seeing and then planting species with complimentary forms/coloration etc to create the eye catching, varied landscape look that appeals to me. An outcome of that was having some very poor performers in high-visibility areas, never getting the look I was after due to the inability of the plants to live up to my understanding of their winter tolerance. Lots of digging out sprawling patches of 5-6 foot tall bamboo.

Also, I made the mistake of planting species that I knew to be very marginal for my area, in high visibility spots that I thought offered a micro-climate edge - such as up against the house next, in corners etc. I have learned that these micro-climates at best can offer wind protection which will really help any species but the marginals ones are already gone at our low temps, wind protection or not. One of these attempts turned out to be a happy accident and a good lesson for me - I planted a trade 'Castillonis' in a wind protected spot in a raised bed in one of my highest visibility locations. It turned out to actually be 'Spectabilis' instead and it has prospered in this spot and is a great eye catcher - I have a 20+foot by 1.25 inch yellow/green bamboo instead of what would have been a 6 foot skinny one. So I switched my thinking from saving the micro-spots for marginals species to select the proper 'hardy boy' and give that spot to it.

I think that this strategy is good for reliably cold areas but perhaps in places like FL, TX that rarely see freezes then I might go ahead with the marginal species in the best spots.

[Alan_L]

You mention other varieties- why those imparticular?

Parvifolia is pretty new in this country (scarce, expensive) but reportedly has potential to be quite big in colder areas -- so it's in high demand right now. The glauca 'Yunzhu' I just picked at random as another example of a not-too-common species (when compared to aureosulcata).

Sounds like you have plenty of space and need some relatively fast screening, so plant away.

You are keeping control in mind, right? The neighbors will only appreciate the bamboo screen until the shoots start coming up in their yards.

[joe lajeunesse]

You mention other varieties- why those imparticular?

Parvifolia is pretty new in this country (scarce, expensive) but reportedly has potential to be quite big in colder areas -- so it's in high demand right now. The glauca 'Yunzhu' I just picked at random as another example of a not-too-common species (when compared to aureosulcata).

Sounds like you have plenty of space and need some relatively fast screening, so plant away.

You are keeping control in mind, right? The neighbors will only appreciate the bamboo screen until the shoots start coming up in their yards.

haha yes I have already marked down trenching days for my crews next spring and fall. It seems like the best fail safe way is to just keep nice wide deep trenches and clip or redirect rhizomes as they pass into the trench. I've allowed space between the plants and property borders for trenching and in most of the areas my mini excavator will (hopefully) make easy work of it.


Im gonna snap some pics of the new plants to help with identification.

[Iowaboo]

I think it just depends where a person is at. In the far northern regions of bamboo growing, such as where I live, I wish I invested more in the tried and true aureosulcata and nuda rather than alot of the more rarer or exotic types that fizzled out.