Hi, I did not notice a place to introduce myself so I selected the bamboo discussion area. Please forgive me if that was the wrong place to do that.

I live just outside of Houston Texas. I am wanting to accomplish a couple of things and it appears that bamboo may be just the ticket. I live on a 5 acre tract out in the county. I have a neighbor that is a nice guy and all but the problem is that he keeps junk all over his 5 acres. Its his right and I support that but I would like to not have to view it. We do own the chain link fence that seperates the property. I know that I could put a cedar fence up but I just do not like the look of them.

So-------I am considering bamboo or cane. I am leaning towards can because I think it is just beautiful. I am hoping you guys and gals can help me decide if bamboo is indeed what I need and which type will work well for my area. I am in climate zone 9. I am just on the inside line of sub-tropical.

So, it is nice to meet yall, and I will be reading yalls discussions in the hope of learning from them. Maybe it wil prevent me from asking eleventy gazillion questions too. I do ask a lot of questions.

There are probably some collectors near you who can get you some bamboos. I think for your climate, hardy tropical clumpers may be the most rewarding so you could look into getting some bamboos in the bambusa genus which are mostly hardy to zones 8 and 9. Dendrocalamus bamboos might work too for you, but will get winter damage when it gets several degrees below freezing.

There is a bamboo nursery right in Houston who sells bamboo online so you might be able to visit them directly since you are already in the area, but I would suggest figuring out, and doing some research on what type of bamboo works best for your needs before buying all kinds of plants. If you are planting runners, you probably don't need any more than 1 plant as they probably run like crazy in your climate. Clumpers can also be propagated easily with culm node cuttings so there shouldn't be a need to go crazy on them as tropical clumpers grow at some very impressive rates.

http://www.houstonbamboonursery.com/bamboo.htm

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

What do you mean by "cane"?

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Alan.
My blog: It's not work, it's gardening!

Thank You very much for pointing out that Houston Bamboo site. I dont know why it didnt occur to me to search Houston. Good lookin out.





Alan, long before we moved to this property there was sugar cane grown on it. Rumor has it that the warehouse in the back was at one time used to process the cane. This comes from some of the older folks here in the neighborhood. We are not that far from Sugarland Texas which did at one time produce sugar for Imperial Sugar.


A few years ago, about 10 to 12 miles away I noticed a guy planting something around his fence line in an attempt (I believe) to obstruct the view of his property from the street. Its a busy intersection. I thought about him (or her) yesterday after signing up here at this forum and reading about the bamboo. Its on the way into town and I needed a haircut anyway so I drove by there. It does appear to be a clumping bamboo. I will snatch a photo in the next day or so, so that I can show yall. I am thinking about asking him if he would share some of it come Spring time. Spring time is the correct time to do this, que no?