Choosing a Bamboo: Clumping and Spreading Bamboos

As with any plant, a bamboo must first be chosen with your climate in mind. Factor in the amount of sun you have and the lowest temperature your area usually experiences. The plant descriptions gives the hardiness of each bamboo listed.

Then, decide if you want a running (spreading) or a clumping bamboo. Bamboo spreads by extending rhizomes, modified underground stems. Clumping bamboos will spread several inches a year; running bamboos can spread many feet or yards a year. Our catalog describes each bamboo as running or clumping.

Both running and clumping bamboos can be used for screens or specimen plants. Running bamboos will fill in much faster, but in some situations and locations, must be controlled.As the spread of running bamboos is rapid,they are ideal for groves or screens. Many are also handsome as specimens plants.

Clumping bamboos, beautiful as specimens or hedges, are (with the exception of the very hardy Fargesias) principally mountain, tropical, or semi-tropical bamboos. For more on choosing, go to Frequently Asked Questions

We will be delighted to use our experience to help you choose a bamboo perfect for your location and need. Call, (978) 692 3240 or write to Burt Associates Bamboo.

Bamboo Growth

Bamboos are capable of phenomenal growth. On hot days, they say, you can “hear the corn grow”in the Midwest. Just so, I’ve been told of warm spring days in China when the Moso sprout, leaf, and reach toward the heavens
with such vigor, it is audible to my customer’s ears. While withholding judgment on both claims, I will say I have seen bamboo grow to twenty feet in a northern Massachusetts' month.

The bamboo stores food in its rhizomes (horizontal underground stems) and culms (canes). Your newly-planted bamboo will take a few years to become well-established and build these stores. Expect a few new culms the spring after the bamboos are planted, and probably double that number the following spring. After about three years, you will see the growth for which bamboos are known. In about three years a Phyllostachys will fill an area of 5' by 5'. But don't expect mature height at that time.

Growing Bamboo in the Landscape

To plant bamboo outdoors, dig a hole as deepas the container and twice as wide. Add a mix of half compost and half soil to the hole, leaving space for the plant. Don’t add fertilizer or manure. Place the plant in the hole roughly matching the soil level with the level of the material around the plant. New shoots are delicate—be careful. Water thoroughly.For the first year, bamboo should not be permitted to dry out. If the leaves roll up, forming tubes, it is much too dry. Fertilize in March, June and September with high nitrogen fertilizer. Turf fertilizer, or the organic equivalent, works well.

When Should You Plant?

Soil (not air) temperatures above 40°F are necessary for root growth. It gains you little to plant too early in the spring. While most the books will tell you to plant only in the spring our experience has been thet even here in New England we can plant from late April to late October. Four to six weeks of 40 °F soil temperature is sufficient time for bamboos to establish before winter.

Bamboo Control

Bamboo control is not difficult but is necessary. Control is not needed for clumping bamboos. Running bamboos can be controlled in several ways.

• Placement near water: Running bamboos will not grow into a pond or stream.
• Mowing: A broad (fifteen to twenty feet) mowing strip around a planting, especially in the spring, when the new growth is tender.You will have to mow each year, but the method works.
• Barriers: A barrier thirty inches deep (deeper in warmer climates) of a material that will not decompose prevents spread.
• An effective variant of this method is to dig a foot-deep ditch around the planting, fill it with mulch, and run a stick through it in the spring and fall to find and remove any rhizomes that might have grown through. This method has become popular with several commercial growers.
  
  
  For a fuller discussion of control of running bamboos see Frequently Asked Questions
  

Growing Bamboo in Containers

Choose a mix with good drainage and a pot that is at least as wide as it is tall.If you are growing the bamboos interior plant,most bamboos will do well in shallow containers, eighteen to twenty-four inches deep. If you are planting bamboo on a roof or high-rise patio, be aware of the challenges such a site presents. Wind and temperature extremes must be addressed if you expect survival and vigorous growth. Plan on a planter at least two feet wide, wider in windy locations, particularly for taller bamboos. The planter should be lined with solid (styrofoam) insulation. Two inch thickness is about right and will minimize rapid freeze-thaw cycles in the winter and excessive heating in the summer.While the bamboo is actively growing, feed monthly with a full-strength high nitrogen (the forst number in the formula) fertilizer. We use a 17-6-12 slow-release fertilizer, but a soluble fertilizer such as Miracle Grow or Rapid-Grow is fine. If you cannot find these use whatever is available locally. In the winter, or when growth has slowed, cut back on feeding to half to quarter strength. for a fuller discussion see FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS.