Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

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Alan_L
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by Alan_L »

Every one of my bamboos upsized fairly dramatically this year except this one. I'm really expecting to have to remove it later this year. :(
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by johnw »

According to Steffen it produced no seeds in Europe last year so perhaps it will survive flowering as did flexuosa awhile back.

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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by Tarzanus »

Just in case... Steal your wife's stockings and put them over the flowering branches. :mrgreen:
Do it during the night, you do not want to get caught. :blackeye:
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by trepanier »

Does anyone have any seeds up for grabs !? i love watching bamboo grow from seed !
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by johnw »

'Beijing' is looking very poor, small leaves, discolouration and leaf drop. Covered in flowers but not a single detectable seed.

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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by pokenei »

My Beijing was top killed this past winter but put up a couple of nice culms in June. Oddly, one of the culms didn't flower, while the other one flowers after leafing out. Then it put up several more shoots in the middle of summer, these turned out to have all flowers but no leaf at all. I think this is the reason why some bamboos die, when they exhausted all their food reserve with no new intakes.

Since I still have one culm with all leaves, I expect it to survive at least another year.
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by Alan_L »

No seeds on mine either. Interestingly, a culm that came up past my trench was left too long (I was going to dig it up before shooting) and neither of the culms there have flowers on them -- they look strong and upright. Most of the culms in the main plant are curvy, floppy, and seedy.
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by johnw »

Should have known mine was going to flower when the leaves stopped growing at half size. Just yesterday I too noteced two big culms with normal leaves and no flowers.

The last Phyllo to flower here was P. flexuosa and I got no seed aside from one non-viable seed. I trashed the plant but years later heard the species rebounded. I wonder if that might be the case with 'Beijing'? They say P. kwangsiensis survived flowering and produced masses of seed. So does the lack of seed produced equal a guaranteed rebound? Not a good strategy for a species if that's not the case.............unless there's not enough genetic diversity within cultivated Phyllo species.
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by dependable »

In the case of P flexuosa, the recovery after flowering was from young growth, mostly at the edges well established "flowering killed" groves.

Just mentioning this in case that would affect the management (as in suspending mowing) around the edges of flowering 'Beijing' groves for some growers here.
Alan_L
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by Alan_L »

My 'Beijing' is producing what looks very much like new flowers on every culm I could see, even that one that didn't have any last year. I'm not optimistic, but let's see what happens when it shoots.
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by Alan_L »

These are flower structures, right? (on Ph. propinqua 'Beijing')

Image
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by needmore »

Yeppers!
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Alan_L
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by Alan_L »

Since they're at virtually every branch node on every culm, doesn't look good for this one.
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by needmore »

I cut mine down before I moved out here, I'll be curious to see what it looks like next time I go back, it is near Kwangsiensis which was in the same boat.
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Alan_L
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Re: Phy Propinqua ‘Beijing’ Flowering

Post by Alan_L »

In such heavy flower, even this year's culms are covered. EXCEPT... there's a rhizome that "escaped" under a half-rotten stump, and the two late shoots that came out maybe 12' away from the main plant show no signs of flowers. It's right in the middle of my Pl. viridistriatus patch so digging up will be a pain, but I'm thinking about trying to salvage that rhizome. Then again they will probably just flower next year so doubt it's worth the effort. (One new culm last year did not flower, but did this year)

I think the best plan is to remove this completely and put Ph. makinoi here. That probably means that makinoi will flower in 3 years though... :lol:
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