bambooweb.info

Hadn't been to the site in a while and Ive watched Needmore go from IN(I Think?) then Carmichael (my old area) then to HI. Wow. Well, me too. I am starting over outside Sandpoint Idaho in zone 6B at 2,180 elevation. Ordered my first plantings from here. Just 2 gallons of Bissetti and Yellow Groove.Will they do about the same in this climate or will one be more or less vigorous?

I have a lake/wetland on my farm here and was trying to figure out the best planting area for my new plantings. There are actually some decent stands here of Yellow Groove and visited one today. Bright green foliage and no leaf drop even in mid Jan. and after a 65MPH wind storm. I was hopeful after seeing that!

Anyone else grow in a northern climate? I'm curious how old I will be before my 2 gallon plantings reach any size in this climate, I'm 40 years old but would prefer it to be before I am say 80 or so. Excited to get back into Bamboo after 3 years off

Hey good to hear from you! I can tap into my Indiana days for your climate - sort of. I think that the vigor in terms of rhizome spread comes down to summer rains, humidity and warmth. I'm guessing that you are dry in terms of humidity and probably don't get lots of regular rainfall? But that should not impact culm sizes, just spread.

If your plants winter over you'll get an upsize, especially if your new plants are not recent divisions and have had time to grow new rhizome in their pots before you got them. It seemed to me that a bamboo divided after spring shooting, the next spring would see culms about 25% the size of the culms when the division was done. Then that following year might be back to 'original' size and then they go up from there. Year 3 after planting you should see some nice sizes so well before you hit 80!

Thanks so much Brad! Yes your Indiana winter is probably a great reference. I think our winter is more mild than the midwest in some ways, typically (whatever that is) we don't seem to get below say 15-20 degrees for long. We can have a week or two in the single digits each year but that seems less common now. And you nailed it with the summer weather, we aren't getting a lot of summer moisture typically. But I will be providing supplementary water to these plantings as needed. Thanks for the confidence boost that they might size up at some point. I was actually very surprised to see some very vigorous and large stands of yellow groove (I think) and spectabilis and some others here. I got 10 2 gallon plantings so should I try and size them up as much as possible for the first year in the greenhouse or better to go right into the ground? I wasn't sure if going right to ground was good or a sustained buildup of rhizomes in more ideal conditions.Thanks so much for the insight as always!

Some of the Yellow Groove ( I think? ) stands growing nearby which looks fantastic for Jan! Good enough for me!

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Yes, Yellow Groove, I could get that close to 2" in Indiana so keep yours fed. If you have a place to easily over winter in pots, you might consider that, but I planted mine out and hoped for the best. I used tons of fresh horse poo on mine and I think that helped them upsize nicely. I put down big mounds of it around he plantings, you can likely see some of it on my website, even though that is not as good as my old site you might find good pics and species ideas there.

Thanks Brad, yes I have lots of manure on my farm, mainly chicken which my bamboos always loved in the past. I will try some in pots in the greenhouse for a year or so and the others in ground and see which one sizes up faster, guessing those that get to overwinter in the greenhouse but you'd know better than me. That is so cool you got 2" culms on yellow groover in IN. How exiting. Thanks again for the tips! I will baby these things and feed them well.

I had a clone of Spectabilis there that sized up more than YG and faster, it was my favorite bamboo I think, so beautiful and hit 30' pretty fast.

Wow interesting, I always had more growth with Spectabilis and never had luck with YG so maybe I will try that again. How about bissetti? That is the other one I'm planting there. My Bissetti and Spectabilis always outperformed my YG in the mountains of CA but dont know if you had the same experience in IN? Thanks for your insight

With bisettii I again seemed to have a different clone that sized up and actually got pretty impressive in size, some of those culms on the website as well. MIne did not seem any hardier than the Phy aureosulcata forms so maybe that was a size trade off, but it spready FAST and produced LOTS of culms.

Are the Bissetii and YG photos on your website under the heading 'reliably cold hardy' from your property in Indiana? That is truly spectacular! How long did those groves take to mature to that density? Curious how many you started with there also.

I have 2 links to species grouped by hardiness, then each link has the species photos. Both of those were from multiple plants, I don't recall how many but more than I needed. I believe that the Spectabilis photos in front of the house there were all from 1 plant and maybe 3-4 years to hit that size.