My favorite plant pick of the week is Phyllostachys nuda. It is a running bamboo, and as such is suitable for large areas or grown in a barrier in a neighborhood. I find that without getting any supplemental water in the summer, it does not run far for me, but has increased over the years, probably around 10, to quite a clump. It yields all the stakes I could want and more. It is very cheery in the winter to look out on all the desolation of the brownness of the deciduous fruit trees and see the sprightly green of the bamboo.
Culms
Leaves
Closer
Culms
Leaves
To view other people's favorite plant picks of the week also, go to hostess Loree's Danger Garden blog and also see the entries in the comments section.
Hannah
Wonderful plant! Great to have something green in the midst of Winter.
ReplyDeleteA cousin has a patch - I get some each year to make a trellis for my Kentucky Wonder beans.
Have a wonderful week!
Lea
Thanks, Lea, I really enjoy bamboo. The patch I show had a lot of canes lean last year, maybe it was from snow. I ended up cutting out a lot of canes, and you can see I probably need to cut out a lot more this year. But it is great to have all the tomato stakes I need, plus other trellising. I also made some "temporary" pole bean trellises last year to expand my pole beans, they worked well if I anchored them into the ground enough.
DeleteI wish I had enough room to just put a running bamboo in the ground. Your enormous clump looks wonderful. I never thought of harvesting it to thin it out.
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DeleteI don't actually find it hard to control the spread of running bamboo, but I really think it is because it doesn't get any extra water in the summer, except when getting established initially. Growing in a neighborhood lot probably makes this very hard, the roots find some water and go great lengths like some horror stories I have heard. It is so useful, there are probably lots of things I could learn to make from some Asian uses for fences, furniture, etc.
Like Alison said I too wish I had the space to put this in the ground and let it work it's magic. There's a nursery here that has a big patch in the ground and I love to walk through it. On a hot day it's cool and quiet in the middle of the patch. Thank you for sharing!
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DeleteI haven't succeeded in making mine into something I could walk through, I did visit someone in Portland who had a marvelous row of very large, like 3" diameter, canes. They must have been in a barrier to be so straight. They were wonderful. The Chinese garden has some lovely bamboo in not that big an area, they must be able to manage it, maybe concrete barriers.
Wow, what a beautiful bamboo!
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