Lewis Bamboo Inc. 1-877-RZN-CANE

Bamboo is a member of the grass family. The bamboo are classified according to their type, species and variety.  There are over 1200 types of bamboo worldwide and identification is done according to its flower.

The 'experts' agree on the following taxonomy of how bamboo is classified. These facts are from the American Bamboo Society's 2005 findings.

More simply put bamboo is a giant grass and is a member of the Gramineae. The subfamily of this class is Bambusoideae. All the types of bamboo such as the cold hardy temperate species fall into a Genus next. An example of this would be the Phyllostachys that we grow many of here in Alabama and through out the U.S. Next comes the Species such as P. nigra. Then the Cultivar of this species such as the Henon. When a cultivar flowers it may or may not create a stable new variety. This happened fairly recently when ( what I consider a unstable cultivar) the cultivar Phyllostachys vivax 'Aureocaulis' started to produce the variety P. vivax 'Huangwenzhu' within the groves of 'Aureocaulis'.

Bamboo differs from many plants in the manner that it has to be identified. The problem lies in the fact that it rarely flowers and this is the easiest way to identify plants. Flowering can vary from a few years up to one hundred and twenty years. Fortunately, the Chinese and Japanese have maintained good records on many species. The rest have been grouped and identified based wholly on vegetative structures.

Bamboo goes years between flowering, this can be from 20 to over 120 years, so classification is often difficult. When a species of bamboo does flower, the grove may or may not establish itself again. The rhizomes (root system) may establish the grove or the flowering process may produce new seedlings.

    There are over 200 species that can be grown well in North America, this will be determined by your climate zone. Bamboo can add greenery to your garden during the winter, it can stabilize the soil of embankments and control the worst of erosion problems. This plant can provide privacy or wind screens and can be trimmed to the height you desire.  Bamboo is not picky about soil conditions, but generally prefers a pH=7 or neutral soil. Most of the large bamboo, we grow, prefer several hours of direct sunlight. Many of the smaller bamboo, 20 feet or less, prefer partly shady growing conditions.

    The bamboo you start off with, should not be thought of as an individual plant but one that will become a colony. This colony or grove is mostly underground (80% of its mass). The culms or canes provide nourishment for the underground colony of rhizomes. These rhizomes are roots and are similar to the culms in appearance. They have nodes and internodes. The area between the nodes (swollen area) is the internodes. From the node area, new roots and rhizomes will grow. The increase of rhizome growth allows the bamboo to store nutrients and therefore, produce larger plants until a mature culm size is obtained through out the grove. The starter plant and smaller plants will begin to die off as the grove matures. An average cane will last about 10 years in a grove. Several years down the road you will have a grove or screen of mature size canes emerging each Spring and Summer.

A baby girl and boy may have some similar characteristics to its parents, but it will not look just like them at an early age. As the baby matures it will look more like the parents. The same goes for your new bamboo division. The canes or shoots and leaves will most likely not have all the characteristics of the mature size bamboo such as stripes or leaf size. Just keep in mind all the bamboo characteristics, just like a new born, will not look just like its parent form. It make take years of taking care of a plant to realize that somebody had sold you the wrong species. Because of this you need to purchase bamboo from a reputable source.  

    During the spring time, new culms (canes) will emerge upward from the rhizome nodes. These new shoots are very tender and can be broken by the slightest bump. The culms emerge from the ground with the diameter that it will always have and will grow at an amazing rate for forty to sixty days (New plantings of bamboo usually take about three full growing years before they produce multiple shoots and take on the appearance of a small grove).

      Bamboo has an amazing growth rate. It is much like a telescope in its growth habit as it emerges. Its' growth has been measured at almost four feet in a twenty four hour period during the Spring shooting period. When the new shoot reaches its height, it will unfold its branches and new leaves. Even though the culm will never increase in diameter or height, it may live up to 15 years depending on the species, but to generalize, seven to ten years is more common.

    As a bamboo grove develops, the new culm (canes) become larger in diameter and the height increases in each NEW cane until the grove reaches maturity. The oldest culms are usually the smallest in size. The new culms, produced during the Spring of each successive year, will emerge larger than the previous year's growth, as a general rule. This is due to the increase in the underground system of rhizome or roots.

      The larger the plant you begin with, the larger the rhizome system and the faster it will begin to produce larger and numerous shoots (new Spring growth). You CAN NOT short cut the amount of time it takes a species to establish it's rhizome system. It is very important to realize that the bamboo division you begin with is only going to grow underground. The culms (cane) attached to the rhizomes or roots has finished growing and will only support the rhizome system. So do not expect the culm to take off and get larger or taller. Each Spring the culm emerges the diameter it will be and grows to the height it is going to be in a couple of months. You can begin with several bamboo divisions and this will increase the amount of bamboo you have each year. You can however establish a grove of bamboo with just one good division.  It takes bamboo about three full years, in the ground, before the mother plants really take off and start producing multiple shoots. The mother plant ( no matter what size that you begin with) is FINISHED GROWING IN DIAMETER AND HEIGHT, but the rhizome will grow outward underground.  Bamboo is a (grass) colony plant and most of the bamboo grove will be underground. Each Spring, the new culms will begin to emerge larger in height and diameter than the previous Spring's growth, until the mature size of that species is reached after several years.

Since you are wanting a screen or grove rapidly (like most people do), we suggest that you start with the 3 gallon size divisions and plant them four to five foot centers. A fluid gallon and a nursery container gallon are very different.  A typical 3 gallon nursery container measures 10.7 inches in width by 9.25 inches in height.  So your 3 gallon timber bamboo will be 3 to 6 feet tall with a root mass 8 to 10 inches long, 6 to 8 inches wide and 5 to 9 inches deep when shipped depending on variety.

   This will really accelerate a dense screen or grove faster. The growth you can expect from a stable division is as follows:  From a 3 gallon size Phyllostachys species you should have a couple of new shoots the first spring.  Then next spring you should have about four new shoots and then on the third year, there should be about eight new shoots from each mother plant, forming a screening effect. It gets quite impressive after about three full years because the new culms (canes) that emerge each Spring will be larger and taller than the last year's growth.

This may not sound like a lot of growth for three years, but at a five year level, you should have 30 to 40 culms (canes) 3/4 + inches in diameter and 20+ feet high, under good growing conditions, from a single bamboo planting. This of course varies with the species selected and some species can be over 3 inch diameter and 40 feet high in just 7 years.

Unless you quit mowing your lawn, you should not have any trouble controlling the bamboo. Bamboo is a grass and you can see on our Privacy Page how many plantings have been controlled to specific areas of long privacy screening type groves. If controlling your bamboo to a specific area cannot be done by mowing, then use one of the other control methods. We show several methods at the bottom of this page on controlling the spread.

For the in ground barrier click here to read about this product and its installation.   
Controlling Bamboo with in ground Plastic Barrier HDPE

    Bamboo are evergreen and put on new leaves each year. This new leaf growth happens during the Spring time. This process is gradual and is highlighted by the appearance of a new carpet of golden brownish leaves within the grove. It is important not to remove this carpet of leaves from the groves for it provides mulch and nutrients for the colony. New plant growth or shoots will initiate around March and extend through May for Phyllostachys bamboo. This period will vary a little with different species and local ecological conditions. If receive your new starter bamboo during the Spring you will see the old leaves turning yellow or golden. These will die and fall away, but generally not before new leaves have formed right below the old formation.

    The culms of the Phyllostachys species will have a groove or sulcus above each branch attachment. Some species have a colored groove or sulcus. The internodes may be green with a yellow stripe in the sulcus. On the other hand, some have yellow canes with green stripes in the sulcus. Others are green with black coloring, solid black, spotted with burgundy or purplish colorings. The list goes on and on. That is not even getting into the different color of leaves and their variegations.

     The cold hardiness of our temperate bamboo are taken from the American Bamboo Societies' Source List and are as accurate as possible. Any variations listed are from our own personal or business experience and we will constantly study and observe bamboo in order to provide you with the most up to date and accurate data possible.

    Many of the bamboo will live even after being exposed to temperatures lower than those listed. While it may be distressing to see your beautiful foliage or culms die due to extreme cold or wind chill, it is comforting in most situations to see bamboo bounce back, the following Spring, with new culms and often new foliage on what appeared to be dead culms. Again, this only happens when the bamboo has been exposed to temperatures below those suggested for that species or extreme wind chills.

     Below are a few pictures showing one of the easy ways to contain your bamboo. With our many groves, we often use this simple trench method to prevent one species from mixing with another. I can dig these 12 inch deep trenches around a 20 foot diameter grove in less than an hour. Twice during the Summer and Fall we check for rhizomes and cut these off, as they emerge into the trench. That rhizome will not grow straight out any more, but will branch off and the rhizomes will then be within the trenched area. We also have the thick (HDPD) plastic barrier that can be installed in the ground for controlling the areas where bamboo will grow. 

 

This is a good example of a   a bamboo division that, to  most gardeners, would appear  to be doing nothing. However,  underground it was about to   explode with many shoots the  next Spring. It had not put  up any above ground culms  in its three years of growth.  Upon digging and counting the  buds on the rhizome, I estimate  that if I had not disturbed it,   there would have been over  12 new canes (culms) emerging  this next Spring.

Once the rhizome has been cut it will never grow from that point on. It will
however produce side growth and this will generate new canes along that path.

The privacy screen will therefore be formed along the line you root prune.

Below Roger walks the length of a grove maintained by regular mowing and
 root pruning done twice a year. This privacy screen cover nearly one quarter mile in length.

 

Below, you can see how easy it is to control even 'Moso', the largest cold hardy or temperate bamboo on earth. In some of your planting site there maybe areas difficult to mow. We use a weed eater in these areas or you can just kick them over. In the first photo you
can see my boot next to the unwanted new shoot. With a swift kick the shoot is snapped off at ground level.

      

  

  

  

This shoot would have been a huge cane that measured three inch diameter
 and 45 to 50 feet in height within two months from the day I kicked it over.

• Running bamboo can provide a serene privacy screen or a beautiful bamboo grove to walk through. Runners with easy maintenance can make a dense natural screen.
  
• Clumpers for screening purposes leave a lot to be desired as they are narrow at the base and weep over at the tops leaving huge gaps between each bamboo plantings. Below are photos of clumping bamboo planted in zone 8 during the early 1950's.
  

 

• There is a running species for most all climate zones. From the cold of climate Zone 5 to the warmth of the tropics, there is a running species suited for all applications.
• Clumpers are very limited to the areas they can grow.
  

• The cold hardy clumping species ( mostly mountain bamboo) are very limited in the climate zones they can live in. They take years to reach 8 to 12 feet in mature heights. In climate zones 6 and warmer, clumping species struggle to survive and usually die due to the summer heat and humidity. You can waste money just as Roger Sr. did years ago when he tried to grow many different clumping species. In cold climate zone 5, they will do fine if you desire a slow growing bamboo that matures at 8 to 12 feet in height. For screening purposes they leave a lot to desire as they are narrow at the base and weep over at the tops leaving huge gaps between each bamboo plantings. We sold hardy clumpers for a while and our customers were not happy, so we stopped dealing with clumpers because of their poor growth performance.

• Tropical clumpers can only be grown in very warm climate zones such as zone 8 and 9. The tropical clumpers are giants and can grow very fast like running bamboo. The problem is the limited climate zones and the spacing of the canes within the clumper. The spaces between the culms (canes) are so close most specimens are very unsightly due to the large amount of dead canes and limbs in the interior of the clump. These dense dead canes and limbs cannot be reached unless some of the outside canes are cut away first. The tropical clumpers I have seen in my travels have been poorly maintained and are unsightly giving bamboo a bad image. Even a well kept botanical garden such as Fairchild Botanical Gardens in Miami, FL which we visited in 2003 for a bamboo meeting, had thousands of unsightly dead canes in their clumping bamboo. A grove of running bamboo is unparalleled in my book and we have seen thousands of groves over the past 50 plus years.
  

• Control of running bamboo is simple and there are numerous methods which we have listed on our web site. Mowing your lawn as  always along with root pruning twice a year around the desired grove perimeter are the most common methods. There is also the in ground barrier containment method.
  
• Control of clumping bamboo is almost impossible. It is not as aggressive, but is forceful about where it wants to grow. In ground root barriers will not hold back a large clumping bamboo. It is not possible to root prune a clumping species to control it. Running bamboo follow the path of least resistance and change directions when they become impeded. Clumpers are persistent and will force their way through obstacles in their outwardly spiraling root path. Never plant a clumping species right next to a foundation or concrete driveway.
  

Toward the bottom of this page will be two tables containing 6 photos each.
These tables will have a summary of the photos taken over a 20 day period.

In China this is the most utilized bamboo. It is used for
food, paper, plywood, furniture and flooring.

Click here to see the plants we sell

April the 2nd.

These photos from one of our mature groves of Moso.
This grove is around 14 years of age. You can see the growth rate from the pictures.

The Moso is beginning to break ground with its new Spring shoots.
The Moso is the very first timber bamboo to shoot each year.

These two shoots just out of the ground. Below is a single shoot
 I will follow along the next month. With this species, as with
 all temperate or cold hardy bamboo, many of the new shoots
 will abort. The ruler is marked in 12 inch intervals for the first
6 feet, thereafter the ruler will be in one foot intervals.

 

We will photograph these three different shoots and hope one will show off for us.

April the 6th.

The shoots have not aborted and are still emerging at a few inches per day.
 Once they have reached around 3 feet in height they will begin growing
several feet per day.

April the 9th.

This was taken on April  2

Same shoot on April 9

Above single shoot has passed the three foot mark.

This was taken on April  2

Same shoots on April  9

April the 12th.

 These photos of the double cane shoots were taken on April 12

These single cane shoot photos were taken on April 12. It has now grown
 over 5 feet in the past 12 days. It should really take off over the next two weeks.




April the 13th.

April 2nd.

April 13th.

April 13th.

 Above photos of the double cane shoots were taken on April 13. The cane
on the right is at the 6 foot height range. The cane on the left is a little behind
at 5 feet in height. I went from inches to feet once the ruler pasted the 72 inch
marker. From 72 inches we changed to 7 foot, 8 foot and 9 foot marks.

This was taken on April  2nd.

April 13th.

April 13th.

Above single shoot has passed the seven foot mark on April 13th. They are beginning
to take off now and should be close to 20 feet in the next week.


 


April the 15th.

12 inch marker shown above as the culm sheaths begin to fall away.

9 foot marker. Note the beautiful velvet coating of soft hairs on the culm sheaths.

 Above photos of the double cane shoots were taken on April 13th. The cane on the right
is still growing faster than its brother. It is right at 10 feet tall today.

12 inch mark

9 foot mark

Distance photo

  Above single shoot has passed the seven foot mark on April 15th.
This cane has now passed the 9 foot height mark.





April the 20th.


 Photos of the double cane shoots were taken on April 20th. The cane on the right
measured 5 inches in diameter one foot off the ground. It has grown beyond the
height of my ruler, but measured around 22 feet in height today.
 
 Above photo shows them growing into the bamboo canopy.

Photos of the single cane shows it well into the Moso canopy and around 22 feet in height since
the first of April when it emerged. It measured 5.6 inches at 4 feet off the ground.

Taken from 20 feet looking at the single cane. Top of the ruler is 10 feet.

Looking skyward toward the canopy of giant Moso

The three culms we followed will top out at around 50 feet in height in the next 2 weeks.



Summary Tables Below


 Below is the growth from April the 2nd. until April 20th.
Hope you enjoyed seeing the amazing growth of these giants.

Double cane

April 2nd.	April 6th.	April 9th.
April 12th. Cane on the left is at the 3 foot mark.	April 13th. Cane on the right is at the 6 foot mark.	April 20th. at 22 feet tall.

Single Cane

April 2nd.	April 6th.
April 9th. Single cane is at the 3 foot mark.	April 12th. There days later the cane has  passed 5 feet marker.
April 13th.	April 20th. Top of ruler is 10 feet.

We sell this species to gardeners in the southeast U.S. and try not to distribute it
outside this area. In the past it has been tried in many parts of the country with
varied results. In the southeastern climate zones 7 and 8 you can grow this giant
to mature sizes. Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and parts of
 Florida have Moso maturing at over 70 feet and 7 inches in diameter.

Moso is the largest cold hardy species of bamboo on earth. The Oscar winning  movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, was filmed in giant groves of Moso in  Anji. Anji is in the Ahejian province of China and has 24,710 acres of Moso  growing. This species of temperate bamboo has been in the U.S. for over 100 years now. That's right, it any several hundred other species of bamboo have been imported for many years plus our native bamboo. Still the myths that it will take over the world persist. Bamboo is a supreme provider doing more than any other grass. Like all others, bamboo has evolved and continues to do so. Going back 100 million years ago when the earth was divided into continents bamboo began to adapt. After the ice age bamboo evolved to survive and later flourish. Recent discoveries have shown that the Americas have the greatest number of bamboo surpassing China and Japan. We live in an amazing time period where we utilize and love over 1200 varieties of bamboo worldwide. Below is a photo in our largest grove of Moso. This cane measured 9 inches at the base and 6.5 inch at chest high level. This grove was started in 1992  and over the next three years had large 5 to 10 gallon size  field dug  divisions planted.

Bamboo is a supreme provider doing more than any other grass. Recent discoveries have shown that the Americas have the greatest number of bamboo surpassing China and Japan. We live in an amazing time period where we utilize and love over 1200 varieties of bamboo worldwide. Above is a photo in our largest grove of Moso. This cane measured 9 inches at the base and 6.5 inch at chest high level. This grove was started in 1992 and over the next three years had large 5 to 10 gallon size  field dug divisions planted.

Above is one of our larger canes this year. It should be in the 6+ inch diameter. We have this bamboo in 3 gallon sizes available now. Moso is expensive due to supply and demand.

 

    Bamboo is an amazing plant that has adapted to hundreds of different locations and climates. Click here and go to our 'Bamboo Boardwalk' and see bamboo covered with ice plus how to care for it. Bamboo has so many valuable characteristics that we can not cover them all on this page. Nature has designed an almost perfect plant and its uses number in the thousands. The structure of bamboo is very sophisticated to say the least. Modern day carbon fiber is thought to be designed after the basic structures of bamboo. The super strong longitudinal fibers of a bamboo culm make the similarities to carbon fibers almost identical. This strength and the very way a bamboo grove grows is amazing. Bamboo unlike a tree which gains no strength from its neighbors and actually sustains damage to their tree branches rubbing against nearby tress. A bamboo grove works together with its mass of overhead foliage interlocking and moving together causing no damage to the overall grove. Therefore bamboo has been on the increase throughout areas such as Florida and New Orleans to withstand the storms these states are a customed to.

We hope to help you find the right bamboo species for your needs and location.

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Contact us: 205-686-5728  Cell: 205-292-0536
E-mail  roger@lewisbamboo.com