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Old 06-08-2013, 10:44 AM
echinosum echinosum is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Feb 2006
Location: Chalfont St Giles
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Originally Posted by Dan1907 View Post
anybody in UK knows a place where i can buy the real thing Himalayacalamus Hookerianus i know Kew Gardens have it but wont share it
am going mad how much i searched on internet for it and seems like uk is not on the map of delivery sort of plants.....
Are you actually a bamboo specialist who knows what he is doing, and really really wants to add this one to his collection of 20 other bamboos? Or are you just someone who has heard of blue bamboo and is going "ooh wow I want blue bamboo". If the latter, I'd wouldn't bother with H hookeriana, because it is very difficult to get it do well in Britain, and you really need to live in one of the mildest corners of Devon or something. Carwinion had a good grove, but of course that is one of the mildest corners of Cornwall. Many people have tried it, and even if they kept it alive they gave up with it as it just didn't "do" for them. In Britain you'll get the blue bamboo experience much more effectively from one of the Borindas - Jungle Giants do a good range of them - or something like Thamnocalamus crassinodus

If you know you really want just this bamboo, then if you spell it right you might have a better chance, it's hookeriana (I know it seems illogical and it is often misspelled for that reason). With the correct spelling, google did find me a couple of people claiming to sell it but they aren't people I've heard of so I'll leave you to follow up with them. Bamboos are slow to propagate, and some are rather difficult, so the less commonly grown ones tend to only appear on the market intermittently when someone has decided to do it and succeeded. It is sensitive, so nursery stocks might have been reduced, or even devastated, in the recent cold winters.

If the above doesn't help, I would talk to Nick Macer at Panglobal Plants, he might have it intermittently, or if he doesn't, he might tell you who has it, he seems to have the most eclectic bamboo stocks in the country, and far from everything that he has is listed on his published stock list. I would also join the Growingontheedge.net forum, a few of the members there grow it or have tried growing it, and so might be able to give you some hints. It may be that you have to go to the Netherlands or France to get it, and someone might point you in the direction of sources there, if you are that keen to get it. hardytropicals.co.uk is another forum it might be worth joining and asking on.