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Plant of the Week
Timber Bamboo
Latin: Phyllostachys bambusoides
We educators are always trying to find ways of bringing math into our
curriculum, and gardeners also need math. So our math question for the day is:
If a stand of bamboo doubles in size every seven years, how many years will be
required to take over the world?
Well, maybe it won’t really happen, but most bamboos do spread so gardeners
wanting to plant these woody members of the grass family must be prepared to
deal with it when it begins its move.
The giant timber bamboo of China is a magnificent plant that can grow to 70 feet
tall with stems over 5 inches in diameter. It is hardy in warmer parts of Zone 7
and South but usually only attains really grand size in frost-free areas.
The plant has a woody stem -- called a culm in bambooese -- that emerges from an
underground rhizome. These culms emerge from the ground in the spring and grow 3
feet or more a day as they shoot to the sky. The culms are a beautiful
gray-green with the nodes usually 6 to 8 inches apart on the hollow stems.
Bamboo stems are the new puppy of the plant kingdom -- they simply must be
caressed when you see one. It takes five years for a bamboo colony to become
well established and start producing the really tall canes.
This is the most important bamboo in Asia -- from a timber standpoint. While
visiting Hong Kong a few years ago I saw 25 story buildings completely encased
in a scaffolding grillwork of this bamboo, with workers scurrying about
unconcerned even though they were hundreds of feet off of the ground. In
addition to its use as a building material, it is also edible. The newly
emerging buds are harvested and used in stir fry dishes.
As a landscape plant, bamboos in general must be realistically evaluated. They
will run, and the better the soil, the faster they will establish and spread.
The fastest growth occurs in moist, bottomland sites such as where we see our
only native bamboo growing -- the wild rivercane.
Stopping the spread of bamboo is usually best accomplished by a barrier of some
type, such as a road or a concrete or metal curb sunk to sufficient depth in the
ground.
In a deep bottomland soil, curbs might have to be three feet deep to stop spread
whereas in more typical upland soils a curb half that depth will work. You can
also slow the spread of a colony by cultivating around the edge of the stand and
removing the rhizomes as they encroach into the area. Deciding to plant bamboo
is like deciding to get a tattoo, once you’ve made the decision you best learn
to enjoy it.
The timber bamboo is hardy in most of Arkansas, except for the mountainous
regions, and even there it will survive in protected sites. Watering is
important the first year to insure establishment, but after that it will usually
fend for itself.
The best time to dig the plant is in late winter just before new culms appear.
It should be moved with a ball of soil attached. Usually the culm is cut off
when moving the timber bamboo because it is so top-heavy it is difficult to
secure without using a telephone pole as a stake. In really cold winters the
timber bamboo will freeze to the ground but the underground rhizomes will not be
killed. It requires little attention once established and is bothered by no
serious pest problems.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist
- Ornamentals
Extension News -
May 14, 1999
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