Bamboo

[waterboy 2.0]

Anyone growing and utilising bamboo?

Interested in the variety of uses of clumping bamboos, keen to touch base with bambo growing folk to see what genetics are being used here and may be available.

WB

[Darklight]

I've got a whopper of a patch of Timor black ( Bambusa lako or Gigantochloa niger, depending on how you take your taxonomy ) about 25yo

It's lovely and slow growing, a clumper, gets really tall. Not sure if it's edible, I mostly use it for poles to prop things up til I fix them properly. It's a structural bamboo AFAIK

Only problem with it is it's a bitch to propagate

[obtuse]

My mother has a black and a green bamboo.

The black takes ages, but the green grows nice and quick and is nice and getting thicker.

I have in the past used bamboo to make shakuhachi's, japanese flutes. been waiting for the black to get thick enough, perhaps never will. but he green ones are ok, but a little on the light side for my liking.

Better off talking to wooddragon.

Happy to help you out if you want, could send you some rhizomes.

Cheers, Ob.

[Darklight]

Ya WB, if you're going past FNC NSW while they're growing, gimme a yell and you can grab some and try to propagate them yourself

I won't post them, they have too high a failure rate even through experienced bamboo propagators, you should take a lot

Edited January 20, 2013 by Darklight

[in_spirit]

I've got a whopper of a patch of Timor black ( Bambusa lako or Gigantochloa niger, depending on how you take your taxonomy ) about 25yo

It's lovely and slow growing, a clumper, gets really tall. Not sure if it's edible, I mostly use it for poles to prop things up til I fix them properly. It's a structural bamboo AFAIK

Only problem with it is it's a bitch to propagate

Yes its edible

[shortly]

Apart from a pot of Phyllostachys nigra that i keep firmly contained.

I planted out Gigantochloa ater, Bambusa vulgaris "wamin"; Bambusa vulgaris "vittata"; Bambusa vulgaris plain ole green & a Mexican weeping up on my cousins block, none have done terribly well with drought & grass fires. Infact i wouldn't be surprised to see a number of the dead when i visit next.

[Bert&Ernie]

Can you grow them from seed?

[planthelper]

i get like 15% strike rate from cuttings (black and budda). still a bit better than having to dig up established clumps, for probagation.

bamboo plants in pot's are always very expensive to buy.

jes jwerta, bamboo can be probagated by seed, but some bamboo's only flower once, every 100 years or so!!!

to make that even more peculiar, it;s said that all bamboo plants of the same kind flower, all over the world?!

bamboo breeding would be a job for generations, hehehe.

anyway, i got some green budda available, ~18 months old, pm me, if you are keen.

[IndianDreaming]

I'm currently waiting for bamboo seeds to germinate (Gigantochloa atroviolacea), I'll let you know how they go.

[Stillman]

These guys are pretty big

http://www.bambooworld.com.au/index.php

[waterboy 2.0]

Hell yeah....I thought this would get some interest. Many thanks for replies.

I started off some seed of a few varieties, however it appears they are not what I was chasing, infact one of the bastards is Moso

which I would love but wouldn't be able to manage.

Re the flowering there was a period in which one of the edible shoot producers flowered across a couple of continents and then they crashed causing a shortage of shoots for a while. I believe a lot of these countries now managed several species in their shoot plantations now. For the love of me I cannot find what the species was.

I found a copy of the Bambooworld Bamboo rediscovered book recently, it is very good on a glance, haven't had time to really sit down and read it, part of the reason bamboos are now of particular interest (Cheers Stillman for the link)

Thanks for the offer Planthelper, already have green buddha and propagating more now from rhzome pieces ,and iron bamboo confirmed from seed. I have a few others from seed, but I am really suspect on them - I fear running bamboos...they sleep for years then boom.