Bamboo seeds in ebay? has any one tired them?

[wfoster]

In eBay i always see bamboo seeds from 4 - 10 dollars. I am always skeptical about seeds from eBay. Has any one tried to grow the Boo seeds from the eBay?

[boonut]

Be VERY careful about buying seeds or bamboo on Ebay. Check with folks here about specific offers. Lots of people have purchased seed from Ebay only to get something they did not want.

[Markj]

You really need fresh seed for good results and theirs not a lot of that on ebay

[JeffreyDV]

I bought 20 Moso seeds and only about 5 of them germinated. Out of the 5 only one survived until my cat ate it!

[foxd]

The think MOSO seeds may prefer a certain temperature to germinate at. If the temperature is too high, they don't germinate.

[wfoster]

I figured all the above to be the case, why wait on seeds when i can find the same plant already started. I was just wondering about them since i see them all the time when i do bamboo searches on eBay.

[mike best]

"Bamboo seeds from Ebay are like a box of chocolate, you never know what you will get."

Because the exact id of seeds is questionable or difficult that leaves lots of room for mistakes and scams. I bet it could be proved in court that over half of the vendors on Ebay selling seeds DON'T KNOW what they are really selling, they are just the middle men. Or maybe the guy they got them from got it wrong.

Anyone know a good source for bamboo seeds on Ebay, lets us know, they would some money instead of the scamsters.

[robbase]

I purchased from the guy in Germany two times, MOSO and Bambusa Ventricosa , and got both to germinate. The Moso did not survive and I have two seedlings of the ventricosa, if that is what they are, left and are doing well. I did it more as an experiment with germination than anything else.

[Roy]

I purchased from the guy in Germany two times, MOSO and Bambusa Ventricosa , and got both to germinate. The Moso did not survive and I have two seedlings of the ventricosa, if that is what they are, left and are doing well. I did it more as an experiment with germination than anything else.

Will/can you post some pictures of you B. ventricosa seedlings?

[Eastlandia]

I bought B. Bambos... out of 100 only 2 grew. They are about 4 feet tall now in the greenhouse.

[mike best]

Help me out. With bamboo is a cultivar only from seed or seedling? And therefore is generally at least slightly or radically different from the parent plant because it is not a clone? That would make seeds most interesting for collecting.

[needmore]

Help me out. With bamboo is a cultivar only from seed or seedling? And therefore is generally at least slightly or radically different from the parent plant because it is not a clone? That would make seeds most interesting for collecting.

Mike, I don't know my nomenclature well enough to say that cultivars only come from seed, but I do know that some subspecies were found as 'rogue' culms in a grove, isolated, and the subsequent culms on that rhizome remained true to the 'rogue' - Vivax Huangwenzhu Inversa, Aureosulcata Argus, are a couple I am aware of. What causes this type of clonal mutation - me no know.

Are cultivars & subspecies different animals or different words for the same thing - me no know?

[rfgpitt]

Mike,
I think we all would love to be the lucky one who grows a new "flavor" from seed. This is another reason why growing them is somewhat exciting (if you consider grass growing exciting).

[svendrix]

Hi wfoster (and everyone else, as this is my first post here!)

For what it is worth, I have purchased 100 Phyllostacys Pubescens (aka Moso) seeds from exotic-plants-de on Ebay, and received them very promptly (ie I think it was 7 days after I paid for them). Also the seeds were large and looked exactly like the Moso seeds I've seen others post pictures of, so I'm thinking that these are the correct seeds.

Out of the 48 of those Moso that I planted, only 2 seedlings have come up so far, though I am a total newbie to bamboo and seed germination in general, so it could have been the fact that the 24 planted in jiffy pellets originally didn't make it, because I didn't expect them to dry out so quickly like they did. I also used a grower's heat mat underneat the 1020 flat tray with 7 inch Mondi greenhouse lid, so maybe that was part of the problem (later read here that using heat to germinate bamboo might not be such a good idea).

Of the 2nd 24 seeds, I soaked them for 16 hours, than planted 12 right away into a 50/50 mixture of sphagnum peat moss and miracle gro perlite that I wetted so that if you squeeze it, it is moist, but not dripping like crazy. I tried cold stratification (ie moistening a folded paper towel, and placing the other 12 seeds in it and folding it up, and putting in a ziploc in the fridge for 7 days, than planting. Its been 3-4 weeks and none of the first 12 seeds came up, but two of the cold stratified seeds did germinate about 10 days after they were planted, and they're up to an inch and a half tall right now! It's pretty cool to see the tiny node divisions so early!

I also planted Fargesia Nitidia seeds (from Ned Jaquith of bamboogarden.com near Portland, OR) the same time and same method, and those are seeming to fare better, even though the seeds are 3 months old. Maybe they are just easier to germinate. I have 3 of the "planted right away" F. Nitidia's and 2 of the cold stratified F. Nitidias coming up (out of 12 of each seeds planted that way).l

I just recently ordered some Pyllostachys Heteroclada seeds from the other German ebayer (pflanzen-exoten), but since that was just the other day, they haven't arrived and I can't vouch for them or their seeds.

I'm hoping that I have a decent survival rate of these seedlings, as I am not having a very good germination rate so far. Like I said, it could be me however. I am hoping to try various methods for various seeds over the coming years as I can obtain seeds.

Thanks to all the contributors on this site, this is a great wealth of information here!

[bambooweb]

I would just like to point out that importing bamboo seeds into the US is against federal law unless they go into a licensed quarantine greenhouse for a year and have been inspected when they come into the US.

Bill