On Wed, 16 Apr 2003 23:55:39 +0100, Victor Meldrew
wrote:

Best to follow the Japanese practice and cut out all but a few canes to
a)promote fatter canes b)create an attractive grouping rather than mass of
intermingled canes.

So is there no chance I'll get one inch thick canes on my nigra without
this selective thinning? I only planted mine last year and was hoping to
get some good growth this year. There are already one or two new shoots
growing but I just couldn't bring myself to hack any of them off!

Good!

I'm a little puzzled why you want 1" thick canes. Mine was procured
three years ago as a smallish plant with about 3-4' canes (length!).

The first year it pottered along. The second year it startled
everyone by sending out three canes to about 9 - 10'.

This year there are maybe ten or twelve canes reaching 12' (I
exaggerated before when I said 15'). They are slender though - only
about 0.5" in their upper reaches (maybe 1" in the lower) but it makes
it very graceful in the breezes. The ebony black is perfectly obvious
and distinctive. If you insist on rigid 1" canes I suppose you had
better tinker as others have suggested. I took a picture of it today.
Perhaps I may have time to stickit on the WWW in the next coupla days.

Interestingly I have just had a special wood floor laid in the
bathroom - solid and constructed out of compressed bamboo. The grain,
if you can call it that, is very distinctively bamboo. I just had a
thought - how great it would have been if it had been compressed P.
nigra. A black bamboo floor! WOW.

Huss

Grow a little garden

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