Boo-Shoots 2016

[steffen]

Hi Brad
I visited Jos 2 weeks ago. The Bokrijk-Moso looks perfectly all right, but we had almost no winter in central Europe (-8 °C / 17 F). Thus, it still has to prove it's hardiness outside the "Domain Bokrijk" in Belgium. Beside the hardiness issue, it produced thick culms ( 5 cm diameter) with very short internodes the first year after planting. I took no pics, sorry.
Best, Steffen

[needmore]

Thanks for the update, as long as we do not have enough data to know this Moso we can wish for it! Now where I live I do not grow Moso due to heat, not cold!

[Tarzanus]

Quick snap of the Moso shoot. Like I thought, it's starting with the white spring variegation.

is this a regular Moso just showing variegation or what variety do you have there ?

That's seedling from 2011. It seems that many of them show white variegation in early spring. Leaf variegation can be insane for a couple of weeks, but those are also the first leaves to go, and in a month or two, there's no evidence about any kind of variegation, at one point new leaves just start to appear completely green, have no clue what triggers that. The other thing about this Moso is, the size of the leaves. They never go big as Moso seedling's leaves can get (most of other seedlings from the same seed pack had larger leaves), but now the leaves seem to be larger than they should be. It's still in kind of juvenile form, so I expect that to change this year. This is, however, the first time that variegation appeared so low on the young shoot.

[mshaffer]

I wonder what happened to this section. I hope it doesn't abort.

[Cooper12]

hard to focus but my Moso Goldstripe has a few new leaves that are extremely variegated so far

[Cooper12]

nigra mejiro and tonkan cane

[Cooper12]

shanghai 3 and parvifolia

[springtimeshoots]

Grey Henon: Year 5 in the ground from a small 2 gallon plant. Started to shoot on 4/15, exactly the same time each and every year. Honesty, I have been pretty disappointed with it's up-sizing. Plenty of culms come up each year and they are nearly double the height of the previous year, but the diameter increase is always average at best or maybe even a little mediocre in comparison to other bamboo. At this rate I don't think I will be seeing 3"-4 inch culms any time soon.

I have Moso, Yellow Grove, and Golden bamboo in small pots and they all grow leaps and bounds faster.

Does anyone here have a large planting of Grey Henon?











It's early in the season but so far I have counted around 120 shoots. The previous year had around 130-140 shoots.



Golden Bamboo: Potted in 2011 with two 12 foot culms. Left it in the pot every winter, it had complete die back in 2013. In 2014 one tiny 8 inch culm came out. In 2015 two more tiny culms came out, one being around 4+ foot tall and real floppy. This year on 4/10/2016, two massive culms came sticking out, it is kind of funny how large it is. The pot only receives around 3-4 hours a sun a day.

[Tarzanus]

Quick snap of the Moso shoot. Like I thought, it's starting with the white spring variegation.

Nooooo, something have picked this shoot (the largest one) and eaten it from inside. The variegated and some of the unvariegated parts are missing and the whole top section of the shoot seems to be hollow. It's still growing,... Some half eaten tissue is just being pushed out on top of it, hopefully something just chewed off the top and not bored itself deep into the shoot. Well, there are other shoots.

[needmore]

Henon never did well for me in Indiana, I have seen one large grove of it in TN zone 6b/7a - 3" plus diameter and the grove was beautiful so hang in there. You are certainly getting the volume of shoots. Have you considered restricting the space it has, weed the area, feed the crap out of it (actually feed the crap INTO it) and cull lots of shoots? Shouldn't be necessary but sometimes that can lead to fewer, larger shoots.

[Van-isle-bamboo]

Here's some "monster bamboo". It's P. Henon in Aberdeen Washington. A quick link to check out for people interested.

http://www.cloudforest.com/cafe/palms-p ... tml#p42812

[springtimeshoots]

Henon never did well for me in Indiana, I have seen one large grove of it in TN zone 6b/7a - 3" plus diameter and the grove was beautiful so hang in there. You are certainly getting the volume of shoots. Have you considered restricting the space it has, weed the area, feed the crap out of it (actually feed the crap INTO it) and cull lots of shoots? Shouldn't be necessary but sometimes that can lead to fewer, larger shoots.

I've thought about culling it over the years, I just wasn't sure what was the best way going about it. I know people have varying opinions on this matter so I think it is hard to get a general consensus on how culling should be done. My biggest fear(I know many feel the same way, haha) is if I did do some culm removal and it resulted in down sizing. Should I be kicking over smaller shoots, should I remove culms in the inner grove, should I let it spread and then remove smaller shoots? Believe me, I've played this scenario out a million times in my crazy brain. I think I've read every single post about culling from here to bamboocraft to gardenweb to try and get a strong case for removal.

I am not going to lie, it hurts me every time I remove a culm, lol!

On a different note, I want to say 90% of all my culms from 3> years ago have died out. Maybe it's natural selection taking it's course here, with all shaded culms dying out.. but the leftovers are all ghost grey now and it's a thing of beauty.

Here's some "monster bamboo". It's P. Henon in Aberdeen Washington. A quick link to check out for people interested.

http://www.cloudforest.com/cafe/palms-p ... tml#p42812

Thanks for the link . It's awesome seeing Henon this massive after 30+ years. I think it's interesting he removed all smaller culms in the belief that there will be less competition. I guess the results don't lie?

[needmore]

Agreed, many approaches, different local conditions also probably are key. If you go to Jos' site at kimmei.com and look at the photos you'll see the result of careful, knowledgeable culm selection/pruning combined with feeding. I know he uses pigeon poo and rhizome prunes, he also clearly 'hand' selects culms to leave. His total recipe seems elusive to others and some have reported that he has 'secrets' about it but I dunno bout that. In any case I continue to strive for the look he has, every planting is a picture I'd like to take.

I was told by Adam Turtle, a very wise bamboo guy, to leave a planting alone until the 4th year, then remove a portion of the older stuff/start making divisions. I also took the time to pull all weeds, remove grass, water as needed and feed with manures. Despite some severe winter setbacks I felt like I saw good results in terms of upsizing. Then by year 4 groves had spread plenty so I started leaving only the largest shoots that came up in a visually pleasing profile relative to the other culms. I was happy with the results but I'm sure there are other/better approaches.

[stevelau1911]

You could probably do what Mshaffer does and bury in a bunch of logs, mulch, or other organic materials into your ground after taking out all the weeds, as well as removing a lot of the smaller culms to reduce too much transpiration. If you look at his picture carefully, you will see a large rotting log right around where he's getting his enormous new moso shoots.

Having a well mulched ground can help with water retention, and really improve the soil profile so that you can have lots of worms, bacterial and myccorhizae to make really soften up your hard clay soil. If you are in OKC, you probably have pretty tough soil, and you probably don't get rain that frequently. Rhizomes going through a huge layer of nice loose soil should have plenty of space to spread their roots and suck in nutrients/ oxygen to start sending up some giant shoots.

I think it's even fine if you load a foot of much onto your groves, then water them in well. I believe henon should have much better size potential than that for you.

Another option is to simply put in different species that tend to focus on size over numbers earlier.

[Cooper12]

a few more pics.
I really love how the new shoots of Phyllostachys nidularia June Barbara look. Very stunning in my Eye

Shanghai 3 is a favorite as well
Blackstripe ( megurochiku ) is pushing as well.