Bamboos leafing out 2012

With the earlier spring and warm weather this year, bamboos are leafing out much sooner than they usually do, and they are starting to look impressive. The biggest ones are going onto their 4th season and some of them have culms exceeding 1 inch, reaching heights of up to 15ft.

Phyllostachys parvifolia: This one is putting out a lot of 1 inchers this year with the tallest ones getting up to 14ft while the average diameter of the entire grove is an amazing 7ft even though over 100 divisions have been taken from it.

Bamboo shoots update 2012

All bamboos have started shooting by now, some of them just starting out, and some of them are almost finished. Shooting season usually starts around mid April and lasts through June around here. All these photos were taken over the past 3 days so there may be pictures of the same shoots just a bit taller.

Phyllostachys Dulcis: This one has a 1.25 inch shoot which is the biggest so far out of any of my bamboos this year. This one went from around 3ft two days ago to over 6ft tall today.

Air layering running bamboo shoots for small divisions

Last year, I did an experiment where I took a phyllostachys dulcis shoot that hasn't formed its anchor roots yet, and forced it through the drainage hole of a nursery pot, filling it up with soil. As expected, it turned out to be a viable division as 4 rhizomes grew out of the based of that shoot after it was severed from the mother plant.

The biggest problem was that the shoot that emerged was too big, and had too many anchor roots that dried up it's little 2 gallon put very quickly. Last year I grew a rhizome close to the surface on purpose in order to promote the formation of smaller shoots which are easier to work with, and I can get plenty of which will be less of a burden for the mother plant since they are so small. As expected, the mini-shoots formed. This propagation method can be used for running bamboos that have a hard time running, or juvenile bamboos where you want to turn small shoots into divisions without draining the energy of the mother plant too much. These are clearly true shoots because you don't always have whip shoots available in the spring.

I'll guess I can name this shoot bud activation, air layering propagation.

Here's the shoots that were downsized while the shoots on both ends of the same rhizome are full size.