New culms

[stevelau1911]

One reason we may be getting massive upsizes early on is because there's no competition from existing culms, and there is generally very good soil where I plant my bamboos because I mix in organic matter down to 2ft or so, and over a huge area for the moso bicolor. These rhizomes growing through that fertile area have all the that nice soil and no competition to produce tons of roots, and really develop a very strong bud.

I thought that moso shoot that lifted up the stone this year was your biggest one, at least the tallest moso shoot right?


Since bamboos are in their ready to grow state after a shooting season, one thing I might be able to do is lay down some manure, and other organic material, use my broad fork(14 inch depth), and aerate the soil around the bamboo right up to where I know there will be root growth. This is doable for me because my bamboos aside from spectabilis aren't prone to spreading that far, and I have a good idea of where the rhizomes/ roots will probably be.

[needmore]

That moso shoot is the largest this year but not largest ever, still it is not as large a the S3 which is not as large as the Spectabilis this year. Atrovaginata looks like it will probably surpass the Spectablis yet so far only 5 shoots are up but it is always slow to get going.

I have 4 plantings of parvifolia and have a total of 8 shoots. My 8 year old grove has none, my 4 year old has 5 not counting the 4 I've culled, my 3 year (maybe 2?) has none and a 1 year old has 3. Perhaps some will come but pretty much a net loss of culms as I've cut down several large ones.

[needmore]

Lousy light this AM trying to get some sasa, indocalamus etc...must try later...

Sasa oshidensis

Sea of Pl. viridistriatus

[Steve in France]

Looks really good , I must try and get over your way at some point.

[stevelau1911]

One thing I've noticed about my new culms on both atrovaginata and parvifolia is that the internodes appear to be unusually long either due to having very few shoots in comparison to the number of existing culms or because they are generally shooting later this year meaning that they have been rising under warmer weather. I think if they upsize a little bit more, it will be pretty easy for either of them to push past the 20ft mark. I've checked underground on my parvifolia grove, and it seems like none of the super large buds on the bigger rhizomes are getting activated, similar to what I had last year with moso bicolor. Perhaps I'll get shoots with larger diameters in another season or two on it.

The culms from last year especially on parvifolia seem to be getting super bushy now so even though they stood fairly upright last year, they are starting to bend under the weight of their foliage.

[stevelau1911]

Looks like my biggest bamboo atrovaginata has leveled off at around 18-19ft, and I can no longer measure down to the inch unless I start attaching some 10ft long pvc pipes solely for bamboo measurement. They did make a pretty big jump in size this year. Here's how this grove upsized since 2008 and it looks like the 20ft mark will be broken pretty soon.

2008: 2ft
2009: 3ft
2010: 7ft
2011: 13ft
2012: 13.5ft
2013: 18.5ft

All those 2012 culms are producing all kinds of photosynthesis from March through the summer while new shoots take their time to leaf out, being more of a liability to the grove until around mid July so the absence of leaf burn helps out a lot.



One thing I have notice about my moso bicolor culms is that they are taking much longer to harden off, now that culms are much larger. I believe it will take a while for these to fill up with starches before there is enough energy to produce rhizomes. The refoliage rate is not that fast either on anything except for last year's culm in the bottom left corner of the following picture.

[dependable]

This year there were some new Henon culms that are show the variety's splendor.

[JWH]

New Bambusoides culms with their long thick branches.

[johnw]

New shoots on Fargesia murieliae on the 17th of September.

johnw

[Tarzanus]

New shoots on Fargesia murieliae on the 17th of September.

johnw

A bit late?
I'm seeing enormous numbers of rhizome necks traveling up to 30 cm away from the clump, but they seem to be stopping and preparing for Season 2014. Hopefully they don't decide to start shooting.

[johnw]

New shoots on Fargesia murieliae on the 17th of September.

johnw

A bit late?
I'm seeing enormous numbers of rhizome necks traveling up to 30 cm away from the clump, but they seem to be stopping and preparing for Season 2014. Hopefully they don't decide to start shooting.

Tarzanus - About 6-8 weeks away from a hard frost, they might be ok.

[JWH]

Spring shooting season is well underway here, thought i'd show off some of the new culms!

Bashania Fargesii is having a nice upsize this year, I found a couple new culms around 1.5 inches thick.






It's also starting to run to the south at a pretty fast clip, that blue stick is 7ft long.


Loads of new Fargesia Rufa culms.




Fargesia Rufa, The new culms aren't up over the old ones yet...blue stick = 7ft.




Fargesia Robusta 'campbell' new culms




Fargesia sp. Scabrida new culms

[mountainbamboonut]

JWH, how old of a planting is your F. Rufa pictured above with the blue 7 ft. marker in it? As I track your growth I am surprised at our similarities in terms of shooting timing etc. so I'd love to know how large of a clump that was when you put it in the ground. Thanks!

[JWH]

I bought it as a little but super vigorous 2L sized plant that stood out among the hundreds at the local home depot in early 2009. It was was filling up a 3 gallon sized pot when I planted it in November 2009. I'm pretty sure it was 2009 anyway! I mowed off the top of the plant tag with the exact date marked on it a couple years back. 2008 would be the absolute earliest in any case.

[mountainbamboonut]

Very cool JWH, and great pics.

Here are a few pictures this AM from my spectabilis putting up 3 shoots, a brand new Megurochiku shoot with a cool purplish coloration, and my vivax aureo that I just noticed had a good sized shoot much larger than any other culms. All of these have been in the ground less than a year so it's fun seeing the upsize and general vigor.