Man this country sucks for summer Heat, it's almost mid summer and yet it's been so cold here the wife's had the heating on


Vivax doesn't seem to mind though, would love to see whats possible with some decent summers though....

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Bamboo...Please note... This plant is seriously addictive and you may lose interest in other, less rewarding plants!

Looks good for no heat. It has been the oposite here this year (New Jersey). We hit 91 degrees f. today.

Mark - Impressive culms on that vivax. Which part of Glouc. are you in? I can't recall seeing any Phyllos when we did garden tours there a few years ago - Colesbourne, Cerney, Covertside.

We too are in a stretch of cold weather, 12.5c this evening and barely getting to 15c today, this coupled with heavy rain and dense fog - bit of thunder for good measure. We were promised a hear wave early in the coming week - 27-30c - but that is now revised top 18-20c. While we have been frost free since late April one does not put tomatoes or cucumber transplants put out on the coast here till after the 10th of June as a rule, dampness and fog combined with cool temps are lethal to them.

So, in short, I am particularly interested in the Phyllos species that do well for you. P. vivax may not be good here as the culms are thin-walled and said to be susceptible to snowload damage. Can you tell me which P. species bulk up in your climate?

In fact does anyone know if any of the Phyllos are from cool summer areas in China?

johnw

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johnw coastal Nova Scotia

johnw- I'm about 3 miles from the center of Gloucester, when it comes to bulking up Vivax is definitely king but as you say dose suffer with snow damage. Once the plant gets tall the culms won't reach the ground before snapping and they usually snap about a third down meaning 20 foot above It's imposable to cut this damage out as you just can't reach it, the plant in the pics still has six or more culms with the tops snapped.

Good performers here;

Vivax
Dulcis
parviflolia
viridis
iridescens

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Bamboo...Please note... This plant is seriously addictive and you may lose interest in other, less rewarding plants!

Nice pictures. Is your grove a planted mix, or did part of your Vivax aureocaulis revert to green ?(as one of mine did). Is the yellow groved green one a common variant in your stand?

Mark - Very good to get your list of Phyllostachys spp. I had great hopes for P. parvifolia based on Kimmei's reports of it being a good-doer in cool summer areas, at the same time I could find no reference to anyone in a cool summer area actually growing it. So this is encouraging and I have three new parvifolia rhizomes just surfacing in pots. I guess I will have to try the others on your list. Thanks so much.

johnw

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johnw coastal Nova Scotia

Mark, perhaps a trade off for your cool summers, my 2012 vivax HInversa culms are already starting to stain black with the fungus we get due to heat humidity and it is early yet. This makes the 'yellow's less desirable here as they tend to stain before the new foliage is fully developed. Spectabilis, aureocaulis & Harbin Inversa seem slower to show than the vivax forms but still they get the black film. I also rarely get the strong burgundy blush on new culms or at least not so much as photos I see elsewhere, I suspect due to very warm spring temps during shooting season generally.

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Brad Salmon, zone 5b/6 Southern Indiana
Winters -20 to -25C. Summers 30 to 35C , humid. 115 cm annual precipitation, frost free from May through early October. 259.3 meters elevation. Growing 150+ species. http://www.needmorebamboo.com/

dependable the yellow grooved green version was the one first planted, it started changing a few years later and now sends up quite a mixture, the green outsizes the yellow by a far way for some reason

Yep that 'mold' sure spoils the look of them, I suppose theirs quite a few good reasons not to have a full hot and humid summer but would just ONE week be too much to ask

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Bamboo...Please note... This plant is seriously addictive and you may lose interest in other, less rewarding plants!

Hi Mark, how far does your vivax travel each year, do you have any problem controlling it over here?
Cheers, Chris

Awesome pictures..thanks for sharing. Can't wait to see that kind of size- and the stray color change, showing up in my patch.

Like a lot of the larger phyllostachys here they seem to be quite vigorous at the root in the early days, but once they've staked out an area they then concentrate on going upwards, so there's no control problem ( at the mo, at least ) it's just getting a little wider each year. It is though very well fed and watered in the center so doesn't have a need to go looking for stuff.




Won't be long for you

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Bamboo...Please note... This plant is seriously addictive and you may lose interest in other, less rewarding plants!

That is exactly how most phyllostachys behave here too, but we are both in a climate with relatively short and cool summers, and the winters are not brutal enough to kill them back. I've found that most bamboos will go 1-4feet on their first year, and then the following years, the amount that the rhizomes advance seems to decrease as more of the energy is focused on growing larger culms in an expanding clump.

There are exceptions like aureosulcata and bissetii, but the bamboos with larger size potential, especially in diameter tend behave more like loose clumpers. I think this is because shooting season occurs so late up here for most bamboos so by the time the culms are completely hardened off by around August or later for larger culms, the soil is already very dry in the summer, and temperatures are already on their way down allowing a very small window of time for rapid rhizome growth.

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

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

I have had first vivax for over 12 years, and some other vivax & v aureocaulis for 7 or 8 years. They do sleep, then they creep and do they ever leap. Vivax is thought of as thin walled and weak. It certainly is not the most cold hardy. But when it gets going. it can cover some ground & the rhizomes are thick and tough. Best not to under estimate it in it's hardiness zone.

It is one of my favorites.

The watering and feeding from center is a good idea and works to keep grove concentrated. If the soil and water conditions are good, it will eventually spread out anyway.

depenndable - How hardy would you estimate vivax to be? Has it ever frozen to the ground there?

I always thought of Cape Cod as being summer cool until I went there and saw super Albizzias growing, even a Lagerstroemia on the outer cape. I suppose you must be cooler than the rest of easstern USA. Do you have to irrigate?

Seems this compact habit of Phyllos in the UK must be from the not so warm summers, though possibly warmer than here on our coast. A friend's 25+yr. old aureosulcata "grove" is still on 2-3 meters across! Doubt if he feeds it though.

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johnw coastal Nova Scotia

I would guess hardiness to -5 to -10f. It did not freeze to ground when nigra and aurea did. It did loose its leaves though. Upper leaves often get burned by dry cold wind. I usually irrigate for first 2 years after planting when needed.