The Bamboo Thread - resurrected

[flushcut]

There is a good chance it will...some species grow in the Himalaya Mountains.

There is a LOT of info here...have fun...maybe you can grow some, too.

http://www.bamboo.org/GeneralInfoPages/BarnhartIntro.html



and here is info on bamboo in snow:

http://www.bamboobob.com/?p=16

Thanks for the link. I am going to read up on them and see what I can plant.

 

[woodworkingboy]

There are varieties that are black too. From what I have seen, they tend to be a lot smaller diameter, but it is very pretty, and makes a very nice display growing in a pot by an entrance or on a patio, or planted in a garden. It may not have the tendency to spread like the regular bamboo, which is something to watch out for. It can really take over an area, push up through blacktop and come up in other places that you wouldn't believe. The young bamboo is highly edible after it pushes through above ground, most everyone that has had Chinese food has had it.

 

[pantheraba]

Jay, you are GOOD...I have some black bamboo planted at Dad's, too...called Phyllostachys Nigra. And it does grow rather slowly and the diameter is on the small side...it has taken about 8 years to get 1-1.5 inch diameter. It makes a nice hiking stick.

This is the outfit where I bought my bamboo plants:

http://www.lewisbamboo.com/index.html


Here is our black bamboo in 2007:

 

[Burnham]

As a help to Chris to get his position on bamboo out far and wide...

From another thread:

I worked at a tree nursery after school on weekdays for a few years in high school. There was a stand of bamboo on the back of the property and now and again i would have to dig clusters of it for customers. It was horrible. I'd rather juggle beehives. I would usually get a few digging spades, sharpen them with and angke grinder, dig some clusters, take my spades back and sharpen again, then dig a few more. I will never dig bamboo ever again in my life. I'd work as a hooker on the corner before I'd dig more bamboo.

I didn't see the bamboo thread or I'd have posted there. Silly tree surgeon that I am.

 

[Tucker943]

I'm serious as a heart attack. You all can have the bamboo. It's all yours. I won't be coming around asking for some. I'll die before I go near that shit again.

 

[pigwot]

Chris,
My wife agrees with your position and says I can not plant any... only native species in her gardens/yard.
Jay,
I have seen that jet black-stemmed, dark green-leafed variety used at a museum in their Eastern Art area. Very nice looking plants... hmm, maybe she'd allow a pot inside the front door...

 

[Tucker943]

Don't do it! The house value will plummet!

 

[Burnham]

 

[pantheraba]

Double

Thanks for cross posting that, Burnham...a good read and a very good laugh.

Hey, Chris...PM me your address and I'll send you some roots when I send MB some.

 

[Tucker943]

I'll have you jailed.

 

[Tucker943]

Not to mention I tossed a bunch of it on a fire once and got burned with flying shards of bamboo. The crappy explodes. Y'all are barking up the wrong tree. You'd be better off planting silver maples, poison ivy, and marijuana in your front yards. Those all add up to less of a headache.

 

[Burnham]

I think I get it...Chris doesn't regard bamboo very highly.

 

[stig]

Chris, you should have been here when all the yellow bamboo died.
People were left with these huge mats of dead bamboo roots.
Impossible to dig out by hands, so anyone with a stumpgrinder was in hog heaven.
There was even one company that specialized in removing them with explosives

 

[Tucker943]

No kidding. That'd be easy stump grinding. Grind it out in straight lines back and forth to cover the area I bet.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I'm having visions of Chris becoming a Mighty Bamboo Farmer!!!

 

[treesmith]

It IS a hoot to burn! When I burned my debris pile a few weeks ago, I didn't know my dad had thrown a pile of his bean poles from last year on it. He cuts bamboo poles every year or so, as the old ones begin to break down. About 20 minutes after I set the fire, it sounded like a young war out front. It sounds like someone threw a box of shotgun shells into the fire.

 

[Tucker943]

I loves me a good surprise when standing next to a fire.

When I was a kid I tossed a can of hairspray into my grandfathers fireplace while he was napping in his arm chair in front of the fire........ That was interesting.

 

[Burnham]

I'll bet it was!

 

[woodworkingboy]

A well known song called "Spring Sea".... Okoto stringed instrument and a bamboo flute. The man is an excellent player.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_ylh0C5Wsog" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[gf beranek]

some species are noxiously invasive. Many states, counties and cites ban the stuff. Has cause environmental mayhem in some places. Like Cudzu.

 

[treesmith]

We have kudzu. It's definitely invasive. My dad said my great-grandfather or great-uncle or someone back then brought it here from somewheres else and planted it to control erosion. I don't know that it even does a good job of that, as it climbs trees and covers them, while the gullies below just wash on out. The patch at my dad's probably covers a couple of acres, and in the last five years, it has somehow crossed the road and started toward my yard. To grow as fast as it does, it has advanced rather slowly as a whole. All around the chicken pen, you can see where they keep it browsed back. I've thought of moving the goats over to it in the fall. If there were a market for kudzu, privet hedge and sweet gum, we'd be RICH!

My daughters have actually cooked and tasted kudzu after reading that it's edible. We certainly won't starve, I reckon.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I hear that if you cut the stuff at ground level and paint it with 'Roundup', you can possibly control the spreading.

 

[treesmith]

Are you referring to bamboo or kudzu, Jay? Assuming you mean kudzu, cutting it off at ground level would be interesting here, as the ground is rather rough and uneven.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Sorry, Scott, I don't know what kudzo is, I thought that you were referring to some type of bamboo.

 

[woodworkingboy]

You guys that have dug up bamboo and know roots, do you think it is true that if you go out during a full moon and drive a wooden stake into the root of a marijuana plant, it will much increase the potency? A person told me that once with conviction. I always had my doubts.