Hussein M. wrote in message . ..


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

I'm waiting for my nigra to take off - I ordered it last year when
Crocus were doing a two for one special. Although I've been happy
with most of their plants, one of the nigras was the most pathetic
weedy stemmed specimin you could imagine. It's built up a lot since
then, so I'm hoping it will go into overdrive this year!

I also bought a Sasa palmate, which is a short growing bamboo listed
as "vigorous". No sign of that vigour last year, but I noticed
yesterday loads of new shoots appearing from the ground anything up to
2 feet from the original plant - looks like I'm in for some trouble
from this one!

As for the bathroom, I discovered bamboo flooring while searching
online and used it in my bathroom too. It looks great, doesn't go
soggy or mouldy like carpet, and is nice and warm, unlike tiles. For
a while, it was great to have such a unique floor. Then the local
Homebase started selling it! :-(

Bob