On Sat, 19 Apr 2003 10:24:43 -0700, Polar
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Apr 2003 21:51:57 GMT, animaux wrote:

If it's a flower spike, say goodnight. Bamboo grows and blooms. It could take
a lifetime to flower, but when it does it dies promptly after.

This happened a while back in Dallas. All of the golden bamboo all around town
decided to bloom and tons and tons of bamboo was dead all over the place.

If it's a spike of more bamboo foliage, I wouldn't worry.

Oy! I will have to keep a sharp eye on it -- if I can even see that
far up! This is a brand-new chile', just planted last year, so I
really hope that it hasn't decided to make an early exit from this
mortal coil!

Thanks for input.

Followup:

Googled "clumping bamboo" and came up with, inter alia,
the following from an NPR broadcast. No. 4 below seems
to address my concerns



Clumping Bamboo:
Yes, a Well-Behaved Bamboo


Fargesia dracocephala
Photo: Bamboo Garden

Look Who's Planting Bamboo!

Running Bamboo

Bamboo Resources

Though no bamboo is inherently bad, clumping bamboo is entirely good.
The most popular clumping bamboo is called Fargesia (sounds like bark
EASier), and the species now growing in the Weekend Edition garden is
F. murielae, one of the most winter-hardy of the bamboos. You'll know
clumping bamboos by their common names -- umbrella bamboo, fountain
bamboo -- which describe their soft, delicate and slightly weeping
habit.

Congrats to you gardeners where winter lows can reach - 20° F; this
culm's for you! But regrets to you hot-blooded types in the SE and the
SW, where clumping bamboo will not flourish. Given that they're native
to the high Himalayas, these plants are uncomfortable to the point of
certain death in areas with long, hot summers.

Growing clumping bamboo is relatively easy (hey, if Scott can do
it...). Here's a handful of tips guaranteed to reward you with an
altogether satisfying and long-lasting relationship (anybody got
similar tips for me?):

1: Give your plant morning sun and afternoon shade. Otherwise, it will
scald, curl and burn.

2: While an established clumping bamboo is drought-tolerant, it will
be far happier with deep, weekly waterings, particularly when summer
rainfall is scarce.

3: Use a high-nitrogen fertilizer (after all, it's a grass) through
spring and early summer, but don't fertilize past the 4th of July.

4: New whiplike canes (called culms) will shoot up once a year and
appear to have no foliage. Just leave them be and they will leaf out.
Since this is an evergreen, though, expect some leaf shedding in
spring.

5: No reason to ever prune your clumping bamboo, beyond cutting out
obviously dead culms by chopping them back at ground level.

6: Each year's new growth will be higher than the previous year's,
until the plant reaches its ultimate height (typically, 8'-10'). It
will slowly thicken in diameter but miracle of miracles, it will
remain a tight clump.



On Fri, 18 Apr 2003 10:18:15 -0700, Polar wrote:


My (clumping) bamboo is doing well, with
one curious exception. There is a single shoot from the
middle growing straight up, high, high, high. Have never had
bamboo before, so should I be pleased? alarmed?

TIA

--
Polar