Spectacular Spectabilis

[David]

Well maybe not spectacular yet, but it is getting very attractive.



Pretty little Ph. a. 'Spectabilis' grove. I thinned about 1/3 the culms this year. Several of our groves are getting large enough to shape and manicure, and I think the results are very pleasing.



One of my favorite bamboos!




I like the open clean look.




A 4 year old Spectabilis grove just coming into it's own.




Regards.

David

[mito0]

great photos, david!
very impressive for a 4 year old grove.
that's what i hope to have some day - a grove i can take a walk through.

[Roy]

Well maybe not spectacular yet, but it is getting very attractive.

No, you were right the first time: spectacular!

[David]

Thanks Roy. That means a lot coming from you.

Mito0- We opened a path through the middle of this little grove so that we could include it in the evening stroll.

[rfgpitt]

David,
Since the move, my brother in law got 4 Phyllos for his back hillside. One of which was the spectabilis you sent that seemed to be taller - I have the smaller more ornamental variety in a pot and hope it to be one I can eventually allow some room. What variety is in your picture (that look great by the way)?

Thanks,

[David]

Rick,

This grove is a mix of both, and is the one I got your plants from. I started it with 2- 5 gal. pots. I have two other Spec groves that were started with single 5 gal pots, one seems taller, and the other seems more ornamental. It may just be my imagination, but they are all growing in similar circumstances and appear somewhat diff in stature.

David

[Markj]

It dose look good

A very different look to what we get here, much wider culm spaces and thicker to boot, makes it much more 'grove' like than the more closley grown versions here.

Perhaps some thinning here is in order

[David]

Thanks Mark. We have really begun to enjoy our plantings this year. Many have a more mature look, and 'clean up nice'.

Beth and I have been impressed with pictures of bamboo in Great Britain/Europe, and want to achieve that garden look. We are going to begin underplantings for that finished look, and visual interest.

David

[needmore]

Looks great David, the thing I notice after the beautiful bamboo is that you have flat ground, mostly non-existent here! Did you thin just prior to shooting season? I have several groves to thin this year and I have done it too early in the past and ended up with floppy culms. I suspect that just before shooting season is best in our cold climes but it is too hard to wait that long!

[David]

Thanks Brad. I thinned this one after all the leaves had opened and the culms were hard to finger nail pressure. I remembered in another thread that you thought that thinning too early could cause floppy culms, so I waited until they were somewhat hard. I think prior to shooting season would an excellent time- that way the culms grow with what support they will have instead of pulling the rug out from under them later on.

We have a variety of topography, and soils, flat sandy loam clay, sterile clay slopes, cedar glens (shallow limestone rock), gentle hillside forest loam, and rich deep silty sandy loam in the bottoms. Our place is gently hilled, but nothing like the ups and downs of your place. Murfreesboro is in a 30 mile wide basin, but just a few miles to our east are the substantial foothills of the Cumberland plateau, and that is very similar to your topography, and what people tend to associate with Tennessee.

Maybe I'll start thinning the dulcis grove this afternoon.

[va_highlander]

Did you thin just prior to shooting season? I have several groves to thin this year and I have done it too early in the past and ended up with floppy culms. I suspect that just before shooting season is best in our cold climes but it is too hard to wait that long!

I have a vague memory of reading somewhere that the proper time to harvest culms - for timber - is in the dead of winter. The stated reason was that it was desirable to cut them when the water content was at a minimum, so that as they dried they would be more likely to cure than to rot. I'm wondering now whether there might have been other unstated reasons as well.

I suspect there's a wealth of bamboo lore out there of which we know little, if anything. What we learn by trial and error here in the West is probably just common knowledge to millions in rural Asia. If only we had the opportunity to ask.

[Mike,Marietta,SC,z8a]

Be sure to provide enough space for it to reach its mature size. They can get 35 feet high and close to 3" culm diameter on a good site.

[serenityinbamboo]

Nice David!! My question is did you rhyzome prune at all or is that the distance it went to on its own? Just asking because I have had some of my runners in ground 2-3years and was curious as to when I should start pruning? I want it to be at least the size of yours, maybe larger. I do not want to hinder them, but at the same time I do not want them popping up 30-40 or more feet away!

[David]

Hello Vicki- I began rhizome pruning this grove at 2 years, but only in directions that I didn't want it to go. I have continued to prune each year since, and got pretty aggressive on two sides. I have also taken several plants from around the perimeter for friends, so that has probably limited its spread. I don't know for sure how much each rhizome can spread per year, but 6-8 ft seems very reasonable. You could just establish a will not cross line and prune at your maximum grove size.

Regards,

David

[Spectabilis]

I want some!!!!!