Help with my "minature" Moso

[ra5946]

Hello all

Long time reader, first time poster.

I live in Round Rock Texas, just North of Austin (central Texas)
I have a small grove of Moso (about 50 culms in a 4 foot diameter area).
This will be it's 5th year and new culms are just coming up.
My problem is, my bamboo never gets any bigger (thicker or taller).
Every year it sends up about 4 dozen shoots that end up about 3 feet tall
and no bigger than a sharpie marker. I mulch, fertilize and water these guys. They look very healthy and lush, but they are so small. I was hoping to have much bigger "trees" by now. I've used synthetic fertilizers as well as fish emulsion and compost tea. I've tried all different types of water as well (hard, soft, etc)
What can I do to beef these guys up?

Side note- My yard only has about 20" of top soil. My neck of the woods is on top of a giant limestone bed, anything deeper than 20 inches is pure rock. Could this be an issue?


Thank you

[ShmuBamboo]

Moso I have seen here grows a lot like that. Smaller, and never gets over 12 feet tall. They tend to grow in juvenile form and in dense clumps. The soil should not be an issue, as bamboos have shallow roots and rhizomes. 20" should be fine.

I would feed them a LOT of food before they shoot in February. Feed them now, with anything high in nitrogen. I would recommend feeding with water soluble food, at half the recommended rate on the bottle twice as often (like, once a week). Keep feeding them though May, and start feeding again in September through October (during rhizome season). Then stand back. If you get an adult culm, it will be implressive.

[BOOMAN]

hello
I am 50 miles south of you. I have tried to grow Moso here in this area, unsuccessfully. My dirt over limestone rock is less than yours, perhaps 6"-8". My unscientific feeling is that there is to much alkali in the soil from the lime rock that must leach out everywhere over the centuries. If one could balance the ph closer to acidity maybe that would help.
Just some random thoughts - and maybe worthless.

[needmore]

Did you start with a seedling or a division from a large grove? The Moso seedlings which have been available from several nurseries (and often their shipping size Moso) seem to stay in a clumping, juvenile state for several years.

Don't know if that describes yours...

[BOOMAN]

I tried Moso from seeds I bought on ebay, they grew for one season then died. I tried a few more I purchased as small plants but when I put them in the ground they too quickly died. So now I grow bamboo that likes the weather and dirt here and somewhat drier conditions of this part of the world. I probably have 700-800 bamboo plants of 20-25 different kinds. I'm happy with this.
I could never resists my own cheepliness to purchase from nurseries since the cost was so up there.

[bambooweb]

I also have heard that Moso prefers an acidic soil. I would get a soil test then along with Sulfur to lower the pH add Ammonium sulfate for Nitrogen, Iron Sulfate for iron, Zinc Sulfate for Zinc,... or fertilizer designed for acid loving plants. I am doing that for some of my plants and the pH is slowly changing.

Bill

[David]

Moso requires a cold season (not necessarily freezing but a substantial cool down) to grow well. Maybe you don't get cool enough. Moso should be renamed Moslow

[Bamboo Outlaw]

Well, all of mine is MOdead. I have tried many times over and this plant will not grow well for me south of Houston. PH is too high, not enough rain and probably too hot. I have one plant I dug many years back still alive and about the same size as when planted.

[rickw]

My Moso loves South Alabama, lots of rain, low elevation, acidic soil, and heaping amounts of fresh horse manure. I planted a 5 gal sized one with 1/4"- 1/2" diameter culms last spring and I noticed 14 shoots today that are 3/4" in diameter.

[foxd]

Has anyone checked the ph of the soil at the Anderson Grove? That was some of the reddist soil I've seen. I suspect it was used to make red bricks that were used locally.

[Mike McG]

]Well, all of mine is MOdead. I have tried many times over and this plant will not grow well for me south of Houston...

ra5946,

My experience here near Brenham TX (half way between Austin and Houston) is similar to Steve's:

I received two pots of Phyllostachys edulis “'Moso” in March 04 that had new shoots that were leafing out. I prepared their bed with sulfur and ammonium sulfate (with iron), a couple of months before planting them both in the ground in early summer. The spot I planted them in receives several hours of mid day sun. They continually showed signs of water distress and I watered them once or twice a week depending if it rained. My impression is that they would have liked to have been watered even more often. The both died in Oct 04 while we were away for two weeks.

I received two more pots that were in good condition in March 06. I kept these in their original pots in the shade. They did better than the first two but gradually declined and eventually lost their leaves. They appeared to have died that winter and did not have any new leaves or shoots the following spring. Since the soil was the original soil they were growing in, my conclusion is that it is our water which is probably too alkaline or perhaps contains something else they do not like.

I had not intended to try again but got an opportunity to dig two more in September of 08. One died right away as a result of being transplanted. The soil it was growing in was very sandy and had fallen off the rhizomes by the time I got them home. I have left it in the pot just in case the rhizome is still alive but I am pessimistic that it has survived. The other one is still alive but only has about a quarter of the original leaves. The remaining leaves are severely wind or salt burned, but I see signs of a few new leaves. With this Moso I am using slightly acidified water. A few years ago Kinder Chambers had suggested using an ounce of vinegar per gallon and that is what I am doing. This is just an experiment for a couple of years to see if alkalinity is my problem. If it survives, I will eventually plant it in the ground or give it to my son to try where he lives.

I do not think the problem in growing Moso in this part of TX is that it does not get cold enough in the winter. I would expect Avery Island is milder and does not get as cold as the 18-20°F that we usually get down to, albeit briefly, here. It may be that Moso cannot tolerate the high summer temperatures and winds with very low humidity that we can get. Moso does appear to me to need more water than any other bamboo that I have.

I haven’t seen any really large Moso growing in TX. I think the best chance for that to occur would be in East TX. Based on my experience you should consider yourself lucky it is even surviving. My largest runner has been Phyllostachys vivax followed by Phyllostachys viridis ‘Robert Young’. My Phyllostachys viridis may eventually be the largest but it has not been in the ground as long and been eaten by the cattle a few times when they busted into the backyard to get to the “greener grass on the other side of the fence.” I have other runners such as Phyllostachys bambusoides, rubromarginata, nigra ‘Henon’, and others that may eventually size up but have not done so yet.


Mike near Brenham TX

[john voss]

a few years ago marler spense showed me some interesting examples of moso growth characteristics in a semi-wooded area of his bamboo nursery in mt. hermon, la.

first, the original division, which was not much larger after several years.

about twenty feet away, a larger cluster, from a traveling rhizome that had found a better site to colonize.

and then about thirty feet from that, on a large mound (30 foot diameter by 8 foot high) created by composted tree trunks and various organic material left there in a land clearing operation, a much larger cluster of huge moso culms.

i think of rhizomes as 'scouts' looking for the promised land.

i made a hill adjacent to my struggling moso starts about four years ago. it's worked great! have had many increasingly larger culms each year. have not had any culms come up in the surrounding flat land...but hope to .

will see in the next two weeks.

[Bamboo4me]

I'm in a completely different zone and climate. But I know it will grow afeter years, as a friend has 60+ foot 5 inch culms. So I will keep trying and hope to go beyond the 1+inch size this year. I have another species also from another guy.
It loves water and semi shade in Hot dry california.

[ra5946]

Thanks for all the posts.

My wife bought the bamboo from an online nursery. She wanted to surprise me so we hadn't actually read up on what species would be best for the area. It's not any taller now than when we got the plant 5 years ago. I'll keep them around, but I think I will plant a second grove of something else. Maybe I'll try vivax.

Thanks again

[GungHoJoe]

wow. I'm a beginner and folks I've talked to around here (in NC) have said bamboo is a very hearty plant. I just set 57 moso seeds and now I'm wondering if I should've started with something else. I got my seeds from ebay too.

I know some kind of yellow bamboo grows well around here in zone 5/6 but I wanted to have something nobody else had.