Prominens and Shanghai 3

[T9D]

So what has been going on with these two species? Prominens and Shanghai 3 were all the rage 10 years ago. Yet i can't find any nurseries selling the stuff. And can barely find much on it in a search. How has everyone's groves been doing of these two? I figured they would be more widely popular and easier to find by now. But nope. I had a some of each way back in 2016 or so that I acquired from some members here. But I had like 15 bamboo types I never found a spot for and had to sell as one big lot when I moved. Some random guy now has an awesome instant collection growing some place in Oregon.

Anyway I'd love to acquire some more of those two. If anyone has any let me know.

Also what the heck happened to this forum?? It's totally dead. This place was so busy and interesting some years back. Bamboo seemed so popular and now it seems nobody cares, well at least don't care to talk about it. Seems like it sells great still at the big bamboo farms.

I sold my first place years ago when I was active on here, I planted about 7 or 8 species at that house. Looks like it's doing pretty good from Google earth lol. I got some land on 18 acres after that. But only just planted some decora, Henon, Sasa hayatae, and Rufa before I sold the place. There was a small grove of Golden bamboo lower on the property that barely got water, got cooked every long hot summer, and was overgrown with blackberries and other trees around it, one that fell over onto the small grove. The grove was barely hanging on, it looked horrible. I cut it all back around the grove, cleaned it all up, and put down mulch. It looked drastically better when I left, and started to even spread a tiny bit. If it can get going to a large grove I think it will be a lot better off. Hopefully it will make it. I left it a lot better off than when I found it.

I picked up a bunch of bamboo again at the bamboo Nursery a couple days ago. They drove me around the bamboo farm and we grabbed a bunch.

Spectabalis

Decora

Moso - The last small pot they had, it looks pathetic, but I have hopes It'll survive.

Bambusoides Richard Haurbrich - WOW this grove looked amazing. What a beautiful specimen. Expensive, but I got two small pots. I'm excited to grow this.

Vivax Huangwenzhu inversa

Distichus

Parvifolia

Quadrangularis Suow - To grow indoors as a house bamboo

I'm going to put them all in large pots for now. The housing market is still too high and it's tough for me to drive down 3 hours to southern Oregon to look at houses. So I bought a tiny little house there on a tiny little lot in town. I'm going to fix it up so it looks incredible. I'll try to fit some bamboo in, needs a Privacy barrier for sure. I'll look for a bigger house on some land soon though. If I can finally find one at the right price (prices are crashing now), I'll be able to stay put and finally have some long term bamboo groves. There is a place on 36 acres I want to look at when I get down there and settled. I might inquire though about the empty lots next to my Tiny house (I move in next week), if I could buy one of the lots I could fit a lot of bamboo there and make a pretty awesome garden. My current lot is only going to be 3000 sqft LMAO

[T9D]

I've added some attachment photos.

Man I love that Bambusoides Richard Haurbrich. It looks way more orange in person.

My Moso is in the right front, I'm worried that will end up a living stick. I hope it pulls through.

Also I meant to say it was the famous Bamboo Garden Nursery in Oregon I acquired all this from.

[pokenei]

I noticed also the forum is getting much quieter for the past several years. Some of the more frequent posters had moved on to warmer places with more options, leaving behind their bamboo collections. Also, there seems to be no more new cold hardy bamboo to be discovered. For my zone (5), I have come to the realization that no bamboo is Winter proof despite global warming.
That said, I am still interested in finding out how some of the bamboos do in colder Zones with or without protection. My largest bamboo this year is Parvifolia - reaching about 18 ft at 1 inch thick. I protected it last year by covering the whole grove with a tarp. Due to excessive weight of snow, all the culms were permanently bent, a few broke. Had I not protected it
however, it would have been top killed and been another year of set back. This year though is gonna be more challenging. I need to be creative on how I am going to protect the large grove.

[T9D]

I don't know how you guys can grow bamboo so far north. Seems like such a challenge and would be stressful. And heartbreaking at times when it gets really beat or killed. But I'm impressed with all of your determination. All things considered some decent success stories. It's nice to know it can be done to some extent. I'm sure it brings a lot of satisfaction. I couldn't imagine not having bamboo, I love it so much in the yard.

This forum did have a few heavy lifters that were very active and seemed to fuel each other and get even more people to drop in and get active with all the hustle and bustle. Mostly they seems to have moved on sadly. Maybe a few of us can revive it and get others motivated. I looked around, doesn't seem like there are any other forums that took all the traffic. It's pretty sparse out there.

[Alan_L]

The "problem" is Facebook -- that's where most of the bamboo discussion is these days I'm sure.

Not to hijack the thread, but we have mostly mild winters these years, but with possible (probable?) brutal cold snaps. Like last year -- we had at least 2-3 days in a row with lows in the negative single digits F and strong winds. Other than that barely got below mid-20s F, but that snap really wiped out a lot of top growth. 95 percent of all leaves were fried, many culms too. Fargesia 'Rufa' all topkilled, which was a first for me.

The only grove that completely re-leafed out on every culm to the tip was Ph. virella. Was it slightly more sheltered? Don't think so, but maybe. I don't grow Prominens or Shanghai 3 so can't compare.

Alan.

[T9D]

The wind is the killer and puts it over the edge. I'm surprised Virella was in the best shape. Seems odd for that one to win out. That's rough to go through. The guy at bamboo gardens was just telling me that same thing, it seems lots of bamboo around the country gets hit with bad cold snaps real fast that wipes them out. Even temps that are normally fine, but the fast rapid drop shocks them or something.

That's a shame about facebook. Such a terrible format. I haven't had a facebook in almost 4 years. Doesn't seem conducive for the kind of depth like we have here. I prefer to stay here even if it's a small group. It only takes a few really active posters to keep others around. Just so at least something is going on.

So I cleared out the blackberry bushes on the back wall of my tiny lot. I'm going to put in a bamboo barrier on the entire 60' back fence line (3 feet wide). Spectabilis will go there. And the west side will be Decora. 50' long and 3' wide.

I cleaned up the yard a ton. This place is less like a crack house now lol. It's coming along. Man that ugly white wall the neighbor put up.... That house apparently used to be the garage to my place, and now it's condemned by the city, but some disabled person lives there and it sounds like some adult kids, the city wont evict them. I'm thinking maybe I can get it cheap and bulldoze it and extend my yard. I'm not paying more than bare lot price though. Maybe if the city puts more pressure on them they will dump it. I hate to have people thrown out but man, that place is a major major disaster. Most any place else would never allow people to live in there.

With some bamboo on two sides, I'll have a lot of privacy for being in the middle of the downtown.